The Rest Will Follow
by Queen of Kaos
Summary: Complete. Randy Orton didn't want to walk away from the love of his life, but her addiction was killing both of them. Eighteen months, and several rehab attempts later, can they make it work? More importantly, should they?
1. Walking Away

**The Rest Will Follow**

**A/N: My biggest source of inspiration in writing has always come from music. And I can't really pin point all of the songs that went into inspiring this one (like Nothing Compares, it has it's own soundtrack), but it kinda came out of nowhere. And I like it. So we'll see what y'all think.**

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**Prologue**

_February 1, 2006_

I'll never be accused of being the brightest crayon in the box, and I know that. It's not like I haven't earned the perception or anything. If anything, I'm an idealist. I like to think that the world is just as I see it, and I guess that's a little bit naive. Stupid, if you wanna put it that way. Some people say that it's a catalyst for change, seeing the world as you think it should be and then working toward making it that way. Others say it's turning a blind eye to reality and living in a dream world. Honestly, I don't know which is which any more.

I think I can finally admit that I don't know much of anything. I've really never thought of myself as complex. I've always kinda been a 'what you see is what you get' guy. Arrogant. Cocky. Asshole. Yeah, I'm those things. I call bull shit for what it is, and I'd rather let my actions, no matter how despicable you might find them, speak for me. I really don't like to talk that much, but I'm not hard to figure out. You do some shit to piss me off, I blow up. You say something that I think is funny, I laugh. There's never been a big secret to unlocking Randy Orton. Just pay attention, you'll figure it out.

I don't wanna sound like a cliche, but come on now. That's what I am, isn't it? I'm a clean cut guy who looks good in a suit, but I've got enough tattoos to keep me from being too All-American. I can charm the pants off your mother, your sister, and your girlfriend. Hell, let's get it all out there, I could probably charm your boyfriend outta his skivvies, too, if I wanted to. But there's enough cocky bastard in my smirk to keep me from being boring. I play the company card when I have to, throw my arm around my dad and rave about family tradition, but I'll stomp a hole in your head if you fuck with me. I am the stereotypical, priviledged frat boy.

So why should it be any surprise that my disillusionment, the crumbling of everything I thought I knew, centers around a woman? A femme fatale who I should have known better than to get involved with in the first place. Tale as old as time, right? Boy meets girl, falls madly in love, and the world falls apart. It's really not original.

When John started dating Maria, and Maria decided that I should start dating her friend Tatum, it was kind of cute. I mean, Maria's adorable, let's be honest, and it's hard to tell her 'no' when she looks at you with those big, brown eyes and smiles that innocent grin. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have to confess I hoped that her friend would pretty much be her long-lost twin sister.

She wasn't. But she was better.

Tatum isn't legs and boobs and hair. In fact, she's kinda short, with a short, messy mop, and little rack to speak of. But she's got something. Something undeniably sexy. Maybe it's her walk, the way she rolls her hips when she moves and the way her pants always sit just a little too low to be coincidental. Maybe it's the intensity of her dark eyes, staring into you like she could see your bull shit if you ever decide to try some on her. Maybe it's the way she sinks back into a chair and dares you to challenge whatever she's just said or done.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but I know that I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Still do. Can't stop falling for it, if I'm honest. She's far from perfect, but dammit if I can ever remember that when she's wide awake and staring at me with those eyes, nibbling on her bottom lip, and giving the me 'you know you can't stay mad at me' face.

I can't. And that's why I have to leave. Because no matter how stupid I can be, I'm smart enough to know that this shit isn't going to get better as long as I stay. As long as I am here, with her, neither of us is ever going to get better. She's never going to get better. And one of these days, I'm not going to come home to find her passed out. I'm going to find her dead. I can't do that. I just can't.

I guess I should be proud of the fact that I, the guy who never hides anything and just is who he is, has kept this mess a secret for so long. Maybe I should pat myself on the back for never letting on, never even telling John and Maria how bad it's gotten. On some level, I think I should probably hold my head high because nobody knows that my girlfriend is an alcoholic junkie.

But it's never been shame that weighs me down when it comes to Tatum. It's always been fear. Fear that I can't save her, that I'm not enough for her, that she'll never be able to survive without me. She tells me that all the time, that she needs me and that she would die without me. Not in a melodramatic way. In the way that an addict who's on the brink of an OD tells the only person there to clean up the mess. In the most honest and vulnerable times, when the alcohol and the drugs have numbed the lying part of her brain, she desparately needs me.

Maybe it's wrong that it took something like this weekend to finally make me see that it's a lie. It was just the Royal Rumble, I guess. I mean, I wasn't in a championship match, and I knew I wasn't going to win the thing. But she promised that she would be there. Again. And she wasn't. Again. She left three messages on my phone to let me know that she hadn't meant to miss the flight, but she had a headache the morning of and just couldn't make it to the airport. She was hungover, but we don't use that word. Makes it seem like she has a problem.

When I got home last night, she was lying on the couch, one arm falling limply over the edge as she stared at the television. I'm not sure what she took, how she got like this, but the liquor and pill bottles on the coffee table, and littering the floor around it, tell me it was probably a nice, big combo platter. She's beyond the point of picking a favorite now. She uses whatever she has, and if it doesn't work, she adds a dash of this and a pinch of that until she's floating beyond this plane of existence.

She opened her eyes when I lifted her from the couch, but even when her eyes met mine, I could tell she wasn't seeing me. She wasn't looking through me like she used to when she was sober. When her mouth opened, I thought for a second that she might be ready to thank me for saving her again, that she was going to tell me how she couldn't live without me. And then she licked her lips and rolled her head against my chest, heaving an exhausted sigh without words.

And that's when I knew that it was over. It had to be over. I told myself to sleep on it, that it might look different in the morning, but who am I kidding? I knew I wasn't going to sleep. I've just been sitting here, in a chair next to the bed, watching her face as she sleeps. The dark circles that extend to her cheekbones, the way her eyes seem so far-set in her head now. The gaunt way that her skin stretches over the skeletal structure of her face. Her shaggy hair, once so meticulously sculpted to look haphazard, now juts out across the pillow carelessly. Her collarbone protrudes dangerously from her body, and I'm almost surprised that it hasn't poked through her translucent skin.

She is a zombie. My beautiful Tatum is the walking dead. Staying isn't going to bring her back to life. It can't. It only provides shelter from the cold reality of her problems. It's me telling myself that it's not that bad, that we can make it better together. It's her telling herself that she doesn't have to fix the problem if I'm there to do it for her.

She needs me, I tell myself. She couldn't survive without me? Who am I? Yeah, in the ring, I'm the Legend Killer, but here? In this room with her? I'm just a guy. A guy in love with a junkie. A junkie who has equal need for me and the crank that she smokes from a piece of foil in the kitchen. She's lost herself in us, the drugs and our relationship. I'm about to lose myself in the desparation and helplessness that I feel for her.

Standing from the bed, I run my fingers over the soft skin of her face, dragging a dark strand of her short hair behind her ear. I can't help smiling just slightly at the velvet touch. But it's not a smile of joy or pure desire, not like I used to feel. It's the smile of someone who can't afford to break down now, who can't let the real emotions surface for fear of pulling her to my chest and never letting go.

With one final sniffle, I pull the covers a little higher on her chest and check the bedside table. There's water waiting, for when she wakes from the crash, dehydrated and aching. And there is a note. Cowardly, I know, but I can't do it if she looks me in the eye. And I have to do it. I have to walk away. Now.


	2. My Name is Tatum, and I'm an Alcoholic

**The Rest Will Follow**

**Chapter 1  
**_June 29, 2007  
_90 days sober

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"My name is Tatum, and I'm an alcoholic."

After eighteen months and four stints in this place, the words roll from my lips with ease. It's like second nature. So much so that I was tempted to write "Alcoholic" in the name space on my release forms earlier this morning. They spend all of this time trying to teach you that you are so much more than the disease, than the addiction. And then they force you to identify yourself by it at every meeting. It's confusing, really. Especially when most of your brain cells have been dissolved in a drug/alcohol solution for the better part of ten years.

"I've been sober for ninety days today. And this is my last session before I head home. Again." I can't help the sarcastic chuckle that escapes at that, though no one else seems to find the humor. They all stare at me with those sympathetic, "We've all been there" eyes. "I don't know. I want to think that this is the one. The one that sticks, ya know? But I just don't know if I believe that anymore."

I don't know if I've ever believed that. It's a lame, junkie excuse, but my substances are the only things that have always been there for me, without question. My parents split up when I was a kid, and eventually left me on my own, too. My elementary school friends found other friends in junior high, and the junior high ones in high school. By the time I graduated from college, there were a handful of people that I believed would be there always, but they drifted into lives of their own, too. Boyfriends always went away. Girlfriends, too.

Until I met Randy. And I was stupid enough to believe that he was the one. The sticker. The one that would never abandon me. We talked about marriage, and even though it was usually through a marijuana-haze, I believed that he was sincere. I believed that he was going to be the one. But he wasn't. Couldn't take it. Couldn't take me as I was. Couldn't handle the flaws. He just walked away. With a fucking note. Don't think for a second that didn't piss me off.

I always laughed at the people who could pinpoint an exact time that their lives changed. I mean, come on. Who honestly knows what one event changes who they are? Aren't we all just a sum total of our experiences? Can't every one event be traced to something else that set it in motion? And if that's the case, doesn't that catalyst event become just as important as the "defining" one? I don't know. I thought it was bull shit.

February 1, 2006. The day my world crashed. I woke up after 18 hours of sleeping off a bender. The glass of water he left crashed to the floor. When I read the note, my television crashed through my third-floor apartment window. Into a car parked at the curb. Bitch's fist crashed into my jaw when I told her she could fuck herself, I wasn't fixing her car. Judge's gavel crashed against his desk when he sentenced me to 30 days in rehab. And when I got there, I crashed. Hard.

"Ya know, I never really wanted to be in one of these places. And for a long time, I never thought I needed to be. I was sure that I was fine, that everything was under control."

You can't check yourself out of court-appointed rehab, as it turns out, but you sure as hell don't learn anything. You put as many drugs in your system as I had to that point, for as long as I had been doing it? You spend most of those thirty days just detoxing. Smoke three to four packs of a cigarettes a day, never finding the relaxation they're supposed to bring. I started chewing on the ends of my hair and my fingernails just to keep my body in motion. Scratched bloody ruts in my arms trying to make the itching stop. My roommate, bless her, wouldn't even sleep when I was in the room. Guess I creeped her out with the way I hunched in the corner, screaming at the demons who wanted me to jump out the window and find a fix.

It only took me five minutes to light up a pipe after leaving that time. April 14, 2006. My dealer, my only friend left over from high school, picked me up from the facility. His glove box was stocked with my very favorite things. And I gave him a meth-induced blow job as a thank you. Stayed at his place for a week, never coming down from the high. Never thinking for a second about where I had been, or what I was doing.

And then Maria showed up. She told me that Dex (the dealer) had called her and let her know that I was getting released, that she should come pick me up at some point. I don't know who he thought he was kidding. Any chance to see perfect Maria in her mini-skirts and tank tops was excuse enough for him.

"I have this one friend who has always told me that I'm strong enough to beat this thing. If I really want to." I scratch my head as I think about Maria, my best friend since my first day of work at a generic fashion magazine she was modeling for at the time. "I don't know - sometimes I think she can't possibly understand me. Other times, I want so badly to believe her."

I remember her taking me home from Dex's that weekend and telling me that I had to stay at her place for awhile. My landlord didn't exactly want me back, which I guess is understandable. She had this beautiful condo, all decorated with cash from her perfect job. The job that introduced her to John. John, who introduced me to Randy. Randy, who was haunting me from every hallway of Maria's house.

She finally left me alone after about a month of constant baby-sitters - mutual friends, her family members, John. That one was fun. But when I was finally alone, I confronted the box in the closet. The one full of Randy's tee shirts and pictures. The gifts that he had given me that I hadn't pawned for drugs, or broken in a rage. It was more than I could handle. I called Dex after a day of solitude, and I was trashed again by the time Maria got home.

We had that long, tearful friend talk. The one where she expresses how much she loves me and how scared she is for me. She told me that she knew I could do it, that she believed in me. I forced tears so that she would leave me the hell alone and hollowly promised to give it a go. Had I known that would mean I'd end up back in rehab, I probably would have kept my mouth shut and just gone for the much-safer "nod."

"Even though I know I've been more honest this time around, I can't help wondering if I even know the truth anymore. Am I being honest with myself, or am I totally incapable of that at this point?" The woman beside me nods and squeezes my knee in understanding. She should. She's been here every time I have been.

I went in the second time in June of 2006 and stayed for sixty days. Out by August, back in again in October. That stint was only twelve days before I freaked out at my shrink and checked my damn self out. For the next six months, I pretty much sequestered myself in the guest house behind Dex's . He brought me what I needed if I agreed to do his friends when he asked, and by January, it was like deja vu all over again. I was right back in the place I had been when Randy walked away a year earlier.

Don't get me wrong, it didn't happen over night. It wasn't like a light bulb went off over my head and I suddenly knew what I needed to do. It wasn't like I came down from a high and just realized that it was time to get my life together. It wasn't nearly that storybook. More like I turned on the television one night, saw Randy kick the shit out of Ric Flair's head, and cried myself to sleep. Where I would usually tip a bottle to feel better, I hugged a pillow, covered in his old tee shirt, and soaked it with tears of hazy recognition.

I was a fucking mess. There were no sheets on my bed - just a bare mattress in the middle of the floor. I was naked - the few clothes that I owned were strewn across the room, torn and tattered. My floor was covered in newspapers - easier to clean up if I didn't quite make it to the bathroom. Not that I ever cleaned anything up. Broken bottles punctured my hands and feet when I couldn't pay attention to where I was going. I'd sat on more than one needle, tossed carelessly onto the floor, or the side of the bed. I was nothing more than a wild animal. The house was my cave.

It didn't take me months of rehab to realize that Randy hadn't left me. Not really. It didn't take therapy and detox to see that I was going to die. It just took a brief, rare moment of psuedo-sobriety to show me that I had pushed away the best thing that had ever happened to me, and that I had brought myself to the absolute rock bottom. The only way that my life could get worse was for it to end. And even that didn't seem worse at the moment.

"Part of me is anxious to see if I can do this on my own. Part of me is terrified that I can't." I sniffle. God, sometimes I hate being off of drugs. I wish I was drunk. I didn't feel anything back then. I didn't cry like a little bitch when I was scared. I didn't get scared back then. "I love y'all, but I don't wanna see ya again, ya know?" They finally smile. Signs of life among the emotionally dead.

April 1, 2007 - Randy's birthday - I checked myself into rehab for the last time. For what I hope is the last time. For an undetermined period of time. Thirty days of detox, sixty days of rehab therapy. And though it's been nearly seven years since this mess really started, it's only been eighteen months since Randy walked out, since my life ended. June 29, 2007. It's only been three months, really, since my life began again. And I don't want it to stop.

"Alright," I smile one last time at the group counselor, and stand. Wiping my clammy palms on the thighs of my baggy sweat pants, I shrug and stuff my hands into my pockets, overwhelmed with a sense of sadness, like I did the first time I left home for college. Like this is my home and I'm being forced out into the world. The world that I know exists, but have no idea how to navigate. "I'm off to the safe house."

I am surrounded by hugs and well-wishes. Nobody offers advice. Nobody tells me that sharing a home with ten other recovering addicts is going to make things easier, or that I'll get used to it and it'll be fine. They don't even tell me what to expect, though I know some of them have been there before. There will be plenty of people in the 'real' world that tell me those things, that wrap me in a hug and tell me that it's going to get better someday. But here, nobody knows better than you, and nobody pretends to. Nobody gives you false hope, because everyone knows how empty hope can be.

Suddenly, I don't want to leave here. Not that I've been jumping for joy before now, but in this moment, I want to stay. I'm safe here. I can't drink here. I don't have a choice as to whether or not I'm going to shoot up. I can't make the wrong decisions inside this place. I don't want to go. I want to be protected. I don't trust me. I don't trust anyone outside of my fortress of solitude. I'm really, honestly, terrified. For the first time. At least that I can remember.

A man I know only as 'X' pats me on the back and smiles at me warmly, an envious smile that says he would be right on my heels if he could. "Whatcha gonna do now, Tate? Now that you're free and all?"

And without hesitation, I rub my thumb over the fading photo in my pocket. "I'm gonna tie up the loose ends, man. Gotta make things right. Finally."


	3. What if Tatum Really Is Better

**The Rest Will Follow**

**Chapter 2  
**_June 29, 2007_

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The people that say time heals all wounds are full of shit and popsicle sticks, if you ask me. Like the time I launched myself, ass first, into a bunch of thumb tacks at Backlash. Call wrestling fake all you want, but dammit if we didn't miss cleaning one of the puncture wounds. Time didn't make it better. By the time I finally admitted that there was a throbbing pain in my ass, it was infected and damn-near impossible to treat. Left unchecked, wounds fester over time. They don't get better. 

So the fools that tell me that I'll get over Tatum in time, they don't know shit, either, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, there are days when I don't think about it as much, when I've learned to focus my energy on my career instead of my pain, but it never goes away. A note in the morning hours isn't treatment. Never speaking again is like bacteria, infecting the wound, making it impossible to think about anything but. Closure may sound like a bull shit psychology technique to you, it always did to me, but I think there's something to it. There has to be. Otherwise, I'm fucked for the rest of my life.

I think about whether or not I did the right thing. I think about what I could have done better. What I did to make it worse. I think about what she's doing now. What she did when she read the note. I think about whether or not she remembers me. Is she still struggling like I am? Does she miss me? Does she hate me? Does she cry for me when nobody can hear her, or is that just me?

My therapist, the company one that I have to go to since being caught lighting up before Mania last year, and fucking up several times since, says it's natural to have questions, given the abrupt and impersonal way that things ended. She says it's nothing more than human nature to wonder, seeing as I loved her and have no way of knowing if she's even alive or dead. She didn't know, until recently, that Maria keeps me up on the major things whenever I ask.

I have to ask, of course. She didn't tell me anything for the first couple of months, didn't even mention her friend's name in my presence. But when I asked if she had heard from my ex, she told me that Tate was in the middle of a thirty day stint in court-ordered rehab. I'll be honest - I knew it wasn't going to work. Because if anybody knows, firsthand, that Tatum Sharp doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do, it's me. And she especially hates being 'ordered' to do anything, but a court of law or anyone else.

I don't know if you've realized this about me, but I'm kinda self-centered sometimes. So I guess it's not shocking that I accidentally told the shrink that Tatum's getting released from her longest rehab stint today. I was kinda caught up in my own head, and I mentioned it without thinking to cover my tracks. Couldn't help it, I guess. It's really all I've been thinking about for the last week or so. Looming over my head like a dark cloud, I just keep wondering if this is going to be the time that sticks, the one that counts.

Of course, now I'm wondering more about the questions Felicia (the therapist) put in my head this morning than the ones I already had there. She asked me if I was more worried that this would be another failure for Tatum, or if I was worried that she would try to contact me. Before I could answer that, she tilted her head in this weird, condescending way, and asked if it was more because I was worried that she wouldn't. She asked me if I was scared that, if Tate's really clean this time, she would forget about me. Then she asked some bull shit about why I hadn't walked away sooner than I did.

I don't know. I guess she thinks I'm as devious as the character I play on television. Do people really think I'm so cold and calculating that I would allow the woman I love to fall apart just for the hell of watching the break down? Felicia asked me if it was because Tate might not need me anymore if she was clean, that we might not be 'us' without her addiction. Yeah, that's it. I am such a selfish bastard that I let my girlfriend damn-near kill herself just so I would feel useful.

You know I huffed and told her she was full of shit, right? But now I can't stop wondering. Is that it? Did I really let it happen just because I was scared we wouldn't work out without it? I mean, it sounds like bull shit, but what if she's right? What if some part of what she's saying is true? What if I didn't want her to get better because I wouldn't be able to light up when I wanted to? What if I never asked her to go to a meeting, or to dry out, because I like havin' a cold beer in the fridge when I come home from a long road trip? What if I really am as selfish as everyone thinks I am?

"Hey, man."

I barely noticed John walk into the locker room, until I felt the slap of his hand on my back and heard his greeting. "Hey," I mumble, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth as I bend at the waist to lace my boots. If there's anybody I don't need to talk to right now, it's John. And I think he knows it. He's been really careful not to mention Tatum around me lately, and to make excuses for me when someone backstage asks me where my head is.

If anyone knows me in this world, it's John. Ying and yang, man. That's us. Both showed up in OVW about the same time, then got the call up to WWE at the same time. We got separated when I ditched Smackdown for Raw in the early days, and then passed again to opposite shows back in '05. Since I've been back home on Raw, though, it's been like the old days. Except for the part where his girlfriend is perfectly flawless and mine is covered in track marks. Meh. What are you gonna do, right?

The only trouble with a guy who's known you for that long is that he thinks his advice is welcome when other people's isn't. He thinks he can tell me whatever he's thinking, even when I don't want to hear it. That's what friends are for, he says. I say that's some bull shit. Friends know when you want them to shut the hell up, and they do. Pains in my ass tell me what's on their mind when I don't care.

"Maria just called," he whispers, like we're conspiring against the company or something.

I catch his eye out the corner of mine and shrug my shoulders, looking back at the floor. I don't say anything, mostly because I never know what to say when someone asks me about Tatum. What am I supposed to say? "Great! Fantastic! That's just swell!" Yeah, I don't know. "Kay," is all I manage.

And though John doesn't say anything else, I know he's watching me. Everytime we have one of these conversations, he always stares at me like that. Like he knows there's something else I want to say, but can't. Like he'll be able to figure it out if he catches me at just the right angle. Like I might be able to hide it from everybody else, but not from him. He is my best friend, after all. He "knows" me.

"Man, stop leering at me," I finally chide, rolling my shoulders as I slide a little further down the bench. "People already think we're gay." With a raised eyebrow, I rake my eyes over his face and shoot him a forced grin. "I'm happy. Fine and dandy." Standing, I grab a can of deoderant from my locker and glance over my shoulder. "Now go away."

There is a laugh from his lips. Laughter seems foreign to me right now. I don't think I could muster it, even if I could find some humor in the situation. Sounds like another, completely inappropriate language coming from him. "Dude, I know you," he states, just like he does every time he's about to tell me something I don't want him to tell me. "And I know you've been worrying about her." I don't disagree, but I don't look at him, either.

I can't. What if he tells me that she's already high again, like the first time? It would break my heart. I don't know if I could stop myself from punching the first thing I see. If I turn, that thing will be John's face. And what if he tells me that she's not a wreck? That opens a whole can of worms I can't bring myself to consider right now. I'll never leave the locker room if I do. "So?" I ask finally. The only thing I know for sure is that, even if it means admitting he's right, I have to know.

He pulls a roll of tape from his bag and begins wrapping it around his wrist. "She went straight from rehab to the half-way house, checked in, and called Maria to let her know that she was there. Maria said she sounded clear, optimistic, and that she was joking and laughing with her." Risking a glance up, he shrugs and bites the tape off the roll. "Sounds like this might be the one, man."

Though I sag against the locker in relief, I can't help wondering. Is this the one? And if it is, what does that mean? Do we get back what we had? Can we? Will it ever be the same? Would she even want to see me again? Do I want to see her? Should we see each other? The reality of the one question that I've been refusing to ask sinks into my gut.

What if we see each other, and we realize we're not meant to be together?


	4. On the Verge of Relapse

**The Rest Will Follow**

**Chapter 3  
**_July 14, 2007  
104 days sober  
2 weeks out of rehab_

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I never noticed how cold it gets in Chicago at night. Funny since I've lived here my whole life. But even in the dead of summer, the sand on the beach along Lake Michigan is chilled beneath my jeans. I'm far enough away from the water's edge that I know I'm not wet, but it still feels damp. Like those spots on the couch where I used to spill cold beer and then forget about it and plop down. Of course, back then, I barely noticed wet from dry. 

Sometimes it seems like a lifetime since I've had a drink. When I smell the lake, feel the sand, see the sun sinking below the horizon, I miss it. I mean, I know that it's not something that I want to go back to, but I miss those parties we used to have out here. Bonfires, beers, and banging in the shadows until we got caught? Don't get me wrong, I don't miss the benders and the hangovers and the stupor that came after the alcohol seized control of my life. But I do miss the times when I still controlled it. When I wasn't the freak girl that nobody even wants to say "Vodka tonic" in front of. When I was just Tatum, the girl who everybody loved to have around.

When the sun sinks and the moon rises, I can't help thinking about those nights when we would drag a sleeping bag down to the banks of the Missouri River, bundle up tightly together, and share a joint. Just one between us. Something to relax the tension of his travels, and the stress I felt from his absence. I miss smelling the sweet smoke against his skin when he laid me back and hovered over me. I miss the floating feeling that always accompanied our coming together.

I know it's too soon. I'm not stupid. Burnt out, yeah. Completely retarded, no. I know that, logically, someone who has just now ventured out of the house alone, has no business making the phone call I so desparately want to make. My sponsor, Sara, says that it would be sobriety suicide to try to see him at this point. Maria says she doesn't know if he would even want to, that he's been hard to read since she told him I was out. Kip and Trudie, my roommates at the house, say that I'm not ready to move on until I'm ready to move out. Whatever that means.

Here's the thing: When you're in rehab, you start to feel this invincibility. You listen to people tell you that it's going to be hard out there, but in the deepest places that you don't tell anyone about, you believe that you can face anything. That you're cured. You start to believe all that 'you'll never change until you really want to' bull shit. You tell yourself that because you really want it this time, because it was your decision to get help, to recover, that it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to say 'no' to temptation. You desparately want to believe that you can handle anything that the outside world might throw at you. Sure, it's hard for other people, but you're not other people. You're you, and you're stronger than they give you credit for.

It's the reason, I think, that so many people relapse so quickly. You get out thinking that the will to stay sober is the most powerful thing on the planet. You forget that your weak will is the reason you went to fucking rehab in the first place. You put yourself in these fucked up situations that people without a problem couldn't say 'no' to, and you wonder why you couldn't be stronger, why you couldn't just keep your nose clean. It's like taking someone on Weight Watchers to an all-you-can-eat buffet. One whiff, and will doesn't mean shit.

Still, I want to believe that I can handle hearing his voice again. That's all I really want. Honestly, it's Saturday night. He'll be working. House shows are Friday, Saturday, and the occasional Sunday night. Television tapes on Monday night. He's busy. He won't be anywhere near his phone. I can just call, hear his voice, and it'll hold me over until I'm more prepared to speak to him. And, yes, I realize that I sound like an addict. But there's no such thing as Randy Orton rehab, so you'll just have to forgive me if I don't know how to do this.

My fingers actually tremble as I dial the number by memory. Hell, for all I know, he changed the number. Guilt and shame have kept me from even attempting to call for the last year and a half. He could be married with a kid by now. He could have a new life completely. Something that Maria chose not to tell me because I just couldn't handle it in my 'condition.'

"Tate?"

I hang up as quickly as he answered. What the fuck? He wasn't supposed to answer. He's working. He's not supposed to . . . I can't talk to . . . What do I say to him? Why was I calling in the first place? What the fuck am I doing and what is wrong with me? And why did he call me 'Tate'? That's a nickname. One that only my friends, and some creepy old guy at the house calls me. Am I imagining the affection in his voice? God, they were right. Too soon.

But dammit if I don't answer the phone when it rings. "Hello?" I can barely squeak above a whisper. Fuck it all. I can't do this.

"Hey," he answers, his deep, rich voice spilling into my ear and flooding my brain with a warmth I haven't felt in at least 104 days. "I wasn't sure if the call was dropped, or if you just freaked and hung up." He chuckles at himself and it's all I can do not to burst into tears.

I don't know if he ever truly understood the effect his voice always had on me. Tummy butterflies are not even close to an accurate description of the feeling in my gut. "No," I shake my head, clearing my throat against the crack in my voice. "I, um," I bury my fingers into the sand and stare blankly at the water. "I freaked," I admit softly.

He clears his throat just as I did, and I wish that I could see his face in my mind. I can see him as he was, as I remember him, but that was so long ago. I can't trust that he's still that man. In fact, I can probably safely assume that he's not. "You want me to hang up? You can get my voice mail?"

There is a warmth in his voice that I can't explain. Like he's trying to comfort me. He always comforted me. He was my rock. My protection. My love. "Randy, I," I start, but nothing is coming. What do you say to the man who saved your life? Or, at the very least, set the events in motion that would eventually save your life? Especially after you've put him through hell? Does Hallmark make a card for that? "I don't know what to say."

"Me, either," he admits, and in my mind's eye, he is seated on a bench in the locker room, elbows on his knees. When he speaks, his head drops and his large hand runs over the top of his head, just like it always did when he was trying to hide a blush, or when he didn't want me to know that I had guessed what he was thinking.

We used to talk for hours - back in the beginning. We could be on the phone for an entire six-hour road trip, he in his Hummer and me on my bed. We never ran out of things to talk about, never got bored with each other, never needed to force any conversation. We never used to be weird, at least to each other. Of course, I have to remind myself that we're not those people anymore. Cause dammit if hearing his voice doesn't make it easy to forget.

"Look, I shouldn't have called you," I start, jumping up from the sand. I have to get back to the house before I call Dex and do something irreversibly stupid. Before I seek comfort from this damaging awkwardness in a needle or an eight ball. "I'm sorry," I mutter, disconnecting the call before he can respond.

For the entire walk home, I berate myself for my stupidity. I knew better. I fucking KNEW. Calling him was not going to do anything but make me feel horrible. It wasn't going to make me feel anything other than guilty. Or unbelievably stupid for letting that man, that fucking god of a man, get away from me. For forcing him to leave me. For fucking up so badly that he absolutely couldn't stay with me.

He was my prince, Randy was. Never told me what to do. Never said anything negative unless it was out of true concern for me. He was amazing. I put him through an absolute nightmare, and he was never anything but wonderful to me. He knew me, better than anyone ever has. He knew what it would take to fix me, and he did it, even when it wasn't the easy thing to do. At least, I cling to the illusion that it wasn't easy for him. I don't know - I never asked. I just choose to believe that he loved me as much as I think he did. As much as my heart tells me he did.

By the time I get back to the house, there are five people crowded around the door, anxiously watching through the tiny window for me. When I get inside, they flood me with questions about where I've been. Trudie grabs my face between her palms and then stretches my eyelids open with her pudgy fingers until I wiggle my head out of her grasp. I can't talk to them. I can't tell them what I've done. And I certainly can't handle any of them telling me that it's okay, they understand, and we can 'talk' through it.

There's only one person who understands this feeling. At least, I hope he does. He answers the phone before it finishes ringing once. Dropping onto my threadbare mattress, I stare at the ceiling and listen for a long moment to the sound of his breathing. Licking my lips, grip the phone and consider hanging up. "What's your schedule look like this week?" He mumbles something about being free on Wednesday and Thursday. "Can you meet me at the diner?"


	5. The Meeting

**The Rest Will Follow**

**Chapter 4  
**_July 19, 2007_

* * *

What am I doing? If you know, please tell me because I am in the fucking dark here. I don't know how this works. I don't know why I agreed to come, let alone got on a plane and actually made the journey. I don't know what happens next. I don't know what to expect. Maybe I shouldn't expect anything. I just don't know anymore. 

I know that I've hardly eaten anything since she called on Friday. I know that I damn near killed Cody in the ring Saturday. I didn't mean to, of course, but I couldn't focus. All those tricks and techniques that Felicia taught me didn't mean shit after I heard her voice. After she called me back and asked me to meet her. If she was on my mind before, it was nothing compared to this.

She hasn't called again. After that invitation on Friday, she hung up and didn't call again. I tried her cell once, but she didn't answer. Makes me wonder if she's changed her mind. Maybe she'll stand me up. What if she doesn't show? Do I just order the turkey club that I always used to get and pretend I was just in the neighborhood? Do I call her? Fuck, this is too complicated. I shouldn't have even come.

Hand on the door, I could turn away. She would never have to know. She could take it as a sign that I'm not interested. She could move on. It would be the final nail in the coffin. Just walk away for good, no hope of anything beyond this. Maybe it's better that way. No expectations. No fear that it won't be what it was. No clue if we were really meant to be, but no pain in knowing that we weren't. I could run away.

That's what I'm good at, right? Just leaving. No eye contact. No chance for the gut-wrenching, heart-aching confusion on her face. But even as I withdraw my hand from the door, it swings open and the familiar scents wash over me. Ever have one of those places that was really important to you at one time, but you forget it after awhile? You think that you forgot it anyway, but one subtle waft of the air shows you that the place has only been repressed, never truly forgotten?

Dammit if my legs aren't moving through the door without my permission. Allison, the waitress with the multi-colored hair and facial piercings smiles at me knowingly. It's been almost two years since I saw her last, but her hazel eyes scream a hello that fills me with warmth. I remember how well people used to know me here. Not because I was Randy Orton, WWE Legend Killer. It was because I was Randy, that guy from St. Louis who's been seein' Tate. I lift a hand to wave at Allison, the other shoved deep into the pocket of my jeans. She winks and nods over her shoulder. I follow her eyeline and, even though I know what I'm going to find, my breath hitches in my throat.

It's Tatum. Not as she was the last time I saw her. No sunken eyes and cheeks. No cracked lips and matted hair. No protruding collar and hip bones. No foggy eyes and rolling neck. Just pure, healthy, unadulterated Tatum. She is, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

Resting comfortably in the booth, she is wrapped in a tight turtleneck, arms around her knees. Her hands are lost in the flared fabric of her sleeves, and her olive skin shows neneath the hem of her skirt before disappearing into knee-high boots. The diamond studs in her ears were a gift for our three-month anniversary. Her hair is shorter than I remember it, sticking out as though she only ran her fingers through it that morning and ran out the door. But it's not the asthetics that I notice as I climb the step toward her corner booth.

It is the way she rests her chin against her knees and stares at me through thick lashes. The way she captures her lip between her teeth. The way she watches me until I've lowered myself into the chair across from her. The way she clears her throat and flicks her wrist until her fingers appear, pushing her hair out of her eye, and then lowering her feet to the floor. The way she leans forward, rests her elbows on the table, and wraps her fingers around the steaming mug of coffee before her.

I wish that I could give you some big, poetic description about how I'm feeling right now, but I can't. I can't explain the way my heart speeds up, the heat floods my cheeks, the butterflies in my stomach fight for position. It is wholly indescribable. I can't help lowering my eyes and then raising them to her face. I can't find one word that seems appropriate. Nothing that will fill the fucking canyon between us now. And she doesn't seem to be quick to say anything either.

Allison brings me coffee, but doesn't say a word. Everyone around here, no doubt, knows about Tatum's struggle. These are her friends, her people. Some of them used to party with us. Some of them used to pull me aside and express concern for her. They know how hard this is. Even more than we do, I think.

"Thanks for meeting me," she finally whispers after swallowing her scalding beverage and wiping her lip with the sleeve of her shirt.

I just nod and take a drink of my own. "You look good," I finally manage. Not because it's what you're supposed to say. Because she does. Because she looks better than I ever remember her looking. Not only because she's out of her sweats, but because she looks healthy. She never looked healthy. Never looked quite like this.

Again, she sags against the back of the booth and shrugs. "So do you," she returns the compliment, and I know she means it. She never says anything she doesn't mean. It's one of the things I love most about her. "You stop juicin'?"

Alright, now that's a question that used to send me over the edge. From anyone but her, it still would. The assumption that anyone who bulks up in our industry must be on something has always bothered me. I work harder than you can possibly imagine to maintain the body that makes women weak in the knees. Lifting until my arms and legs feel like they're going to fall off. Turning away from the desert tray at family gatherings when all really I want is my mom's turtle cheesecake. Choking down carrots and celery while my friends feast on Buffalo wings at a Super Bowl party. It's not always fun, but the payoff is worth it. At least to me.

I work hard, and to have it negated by the assumption that we're all just a bunch of steroid-injected freaks is offensive. Except that I'm supposed to be this bad ass who can take anyone, who's vicious and vindictive, and my normal toned physique isn't quite as impressive to the higher ups as it could be. So I take 'supplements' for the edge. Turn up your nose in disgust, shake your head in denial, whatever. I'm not the only one, and it's my fucking body, so lay off.

Clearing my throat, I realize she's watching for my answer. I lick my lips and smile sheepishly, nodding. "Couldn't," I start and then realize what I'm about to say. Would it make her feel guilty to know that I stopped because the thought of sticking a needle in my arm only reminded me of her? The idea of popping pills carried her image so vividly that I couldn't get my throat to swallow them down? I didn't come here to make her feel guilty. "Had to stop."

She nods and lifts her mug with both hands again, her eyes fixed on me as though she can't stop watching. "Looks good on you. Not so puffy," she nods toward my face. It was always her biggest complaint. When I was in the upswing of a 'roid cycle, she said it made my face too bloated. Said she couldn't see my beautiful blue eyes as clearly around my fat cheeks. That was usually right before I would swing her over my shoulder and carry her up the stairs to prove I was still the same guy she'd always known.

Another silence settles over us, and though I can't seem to tear my eyes from her, she's staring at the table now. There are a million things we need to say to each other, but neither of us speaks. I can't. I don't know what her problem is. She invited me here, after all. She couldn't be a little more prepared? Fuck, this was a mistake. I can't do this. I should just slap down some cash to cover the coffee and get out. This is just too weird.

"Randy," her voice interrupts my exit plan and I stop cold, my eyes frozen on the floor. "I don't know how to do this." Her hand reaches across the table and brushes against mine. A thousand watts of electricity fly up my back in response. Jesus, the touch is the same. Exactly. "I guess I just wanted to tell you 'thanks' for making me see where I was, ya know? For saving my life."

The words cut through me. How do you respond to that? 'You're welcome' seems a little too flippant. 'It was nothing' isn't right, either. 'I'm just glad you got help' sounds pompous. I know I'm arrogant, but it wasn't me that saved her. She did that. I can't say that, though, or it sounds like I'm denying that I ever had a part in it. Instead, I do what comes most natural. I nod. Eyes fixed on the inside of my coffee cup, fingers stiff from trying not to react to her touch. My head is all that moves, and I'm not sure I'm in control of that reaction even.

Obviously, I knew that we had to address the issue at some point. But now that the elephant is sitting on the table between us, I'm not sure where to start. I don't know what to say. There are things I want to know, but I don't want to push her over the edge again. She looks stronger. Healthier. But I don't know how fragile she may be. And as many emotions as I have running through me - anger, hurt, disappointment, sadness - I don't want to break the glass bubble of tranquility she's surrounded herself with.

She licks her lips and withdraws her hands, pulling her knees up again. "I'm so sorry for what I put us through," she manages to squeak.

The mere tone of her voice draws my eyes to her face. God dammit. Tears. They're collecting on the brims of her eyes, and she's fighting like hell not to let them fall, but they're there. Because of me. Shit. "Don't," I start, reaching forward without so much as a thought to capture the first to fall. It burns against my thumb as I retract my hand and wipe my hand on my pants, stirring an unnecessary sugar packet into my coffee.

There's a sniffle on her end and she runs her sleeve over her face. "I'm sorry," she apologizes yet again and I'm not sure I can hear the word anymore.

"Just stop," I hold up a hand with a huff, something breaking inside me as I meet her soulful eyes. "Stop apologizing, okay? You got help. Got better. That's all I need." Shaking my head, I mumble as I tap my fingers nervously against the lacquered table-top. "All I ever wanted."

"Can I ask you a question?" The vulnerable way she speaks melts my cold heart. To be completely honest, I thought I might come here, see her, tell her how much hell she put me through, and then walk away. That was one option, anyway. But that voice, seeing her again, makes anger impossible. Just like it always did. "Were we in love?" My eyes fly to her face, the shock has to be apparent. "Really?"

Has she been talking to Maria? Because fuck if that's not the same question everyone keeps asking me lately. Felicia, John and Maria, my mom and my sister. _If this girl was such a fucking mess, even when you met her, how could you possibly love her? How could you have really been in love with each other? Especially if she was so in love with her substances? _I'm sick to fucking death of that question.

"How could you even ask me that?" I shoot off without thinking about how it's going to affect her. Oh, I know how Felicia explained it to me, but I don't really fucking care about Felicia right now. I care about Tatum. And I care about her questioning the only thing I've ever really been sure of. "You were my entire world. Even when I wasn't home with you, you were the only thing on my mind. Everything. You were fucking everything and you're gonna sit there and ask me if we were in love?" God dammit, I didn't wanna get angry with her, but she's so good at driving me here. "Shit, Tate, I don't know about you, but I was so fucked up in love with you, I forgot all about me."

I guess I know that it doesn't make sense to some people, but my relationship doesn't have to make any fucking sense to you, okay? Makes sense to me. She wasn't always wasted. She wasn't always high or drunk or fucked up. When we first met, we were both recreational users. We liked the same things, agreed on the same issues, and really just enjoyed talking to each other. She made me laugh like nobody else could, and she made me feel like a regular guy. Just Randy. Didn't give a flying fuck about what I did for a living, but wasn't so repulsed by it that she wouldn't watch it. For me. We were totally wrapped up in each other. And that was all we needed. All I needed.

Her eyes lower and she nods, as though taking a beating she knows she deserves. I never intended to beat her up. That's not why I came here at all. Why did I come here again? Fuck if I still don't know. What is this serving to accomplish? Seriously? Why are we doing this to ourselves? It's obviously not going to help anything. It was just a mistake.

"Calm down," she whispers, her fingers brushing over mine again. When I look up, she smiles weakly and turns her head to the side. She leans forward and runs her palm over my cheek. Dammit, I don't want to calm down. We have shit to talk about. There are things that we need to address. I don't want to calm the fuck down. I want answers. When she touches me, I can't even remember the damn questions. "Let's take a walk."

She slides from the booth, her tiny denim skirt hanging low, like always. The sneak peek of her tummy reveals not a concave, malnourished dent, but the toned beginnings of a six-pack. Not only is she healthy, she's gotten in shape. I can see muscle definition in her thighs as she drops a few bills on the table and then she pulls the hem of her shirt until it meets the belt on her skirt. Without thought, I take her hand and allow to to lead me into the heat of the afternoon.

I drop her hand on the way to Lakeshore. I can't keep touching her. I can't let go of everything yet. I want to so badly, especially when I notice the whole of her outfit. It's fucking July and she's wearing a turtleneck and boots. What the fuck is wrong with her? What's wrong with me for wanting to pull her into my arms and bury my face in the back of her neck while we watch the tides rolling in? I can't do that. I can't let go yet. I can't excuse everything.

We stop at the corner and she crosses her arms at her waist, pulling her shirt over her head. And she suddenly looks more Tatum-like. White tank top, cut high over her abdomen, covering a black bra. She drapes the turtleneck over her arm and continues walking when the light changes. And I continue following like a puppy. And it becomes clear to me that I will still follow wherever this vixen leads me, into whatever peril she might not even see coming. I'm no closer to 'over her' than I was a year and a half ago. And it scares me.

When we arrive at the beach, she stops near a bench and unzips her boots, sliding them off so that she can feel the sand between her toes. Carrying her things, I follow through the maze of children playing and friends sunning themselves. A few people whisper, thinking that they've recognized me, but I could care less at the moment. I'm not in the mood to talk. To anyone.

Not as my eyes focus, for the first time, on her bare arms. To the burn marks, and the needle scars, against her skin. It hits me. Yeah, I'm a little slow to the table, but those scars tell me the truth that I've been walking around, only vaguely allowing to permeate my brain until now. We will never be the same again. We are scarred. No matter what happens with us. No matter what questions we ask, and what answers we give, this is as much a part of us as those scars are a part of her. We are damaged. Forever.

When it feels like we've walked a lifetime, when the squeals of laughter are only an echo in the distance, I tuck one hand in my pocket, drop her shirt and boots, and run my fingers over the back of my neck, staring at her bare toes as they dig into the sand and then re-appear with each step. But when I open my mouth to speak, it's her voice that fills the space between us.

"You got a girlfriend?"

The question is so abrupt, and seems so far from relevant, that it nearly knocks me back a step. "What?" I stop moving and stare at her in disbelief. Why in the world should it matter?

She doesn't fire back like she used to. Just turns slowly in the sand and tucks her hands in the back pockets of her skirt, crossing one ankle over the other as her gaze drops to the water at her side. "Look, it's been a long time, Randy. I put you through hell. It only makes sense that you moved on. I just want you to be honest with me, okay?" She catches her trembling lip between her teeth. "I can take it, ya know."

I don't know. If the answer were 'yes' would she be okay with that? Or would she freak out? Or is that just my wishful thinking? Because if she told me that she had met someone in rehab, that she had moved on? I don't know if I could take that. If she told me that she was in love with someone else, or ready to start dating someone who wasn't me, I'm not sure that I wouldn't freak out. "No," I tell her honestly, shaking my head as I rest my weight on one hip.

While I expect her to jump for joy, I can't deny that I'm somewhat confused when she squeezes her eyes shut and another tear escapes. "But you've been dating?" she asks, turning back to me. I shake my head. I haven't. Not since her. This time, it's her eyes that are dark, not mine. Anger clouds her expression, mixed with something that might be guilt. I'm not sure. "Why?"

I shrug my shoulders and I'm sure I look just as confused as I feel. I'm not really good at masking my emotions. "Why what?"

The heat is beginning to rise, her cheeks kissed with pink that always precedes the outburst. "Randy, you're not exactly the hunchback. And you're practically a knight in shining wrestling trunks. You're perfect. And there are perfect women out there who would be perfect for you. You should be finding your perfect princess."

She turns away from me and before I can process what I've done, I am behind her, my chest against her back, my hands hovering over her shoulders. "Perfect is boring," I remind her of the same thing I've always told her.

Look, I know perfection, okay? I mean, I know what perfect women look like. Each other. Each and every one of them looks like the one before. A mundane parade of mediocre perfection. Tatum will never be considered a classic beauty, but she's everything I didn't even know I wanted. Slightly left of perfection. Why can she not just understand that? What have I ever done to make her think that I'm this hero on the white horse? That I'm in any way perfect?

But she turns and stares up at me, her breath palpable against my neck. Her eyes meet mine and she sets her jaw. "You were supposed to move on and forget about me. You were supposed to be relieved to be rid of me." Though her voice is barely above a whisper, her meaning is loud and clear.

I take a step back and rest my hands on my hips, my head shaking from left to right and back again. "Why? So you can add one more thing to the list of shit you've done wrong? So you can have something else to beat yourself up about? So that you can heap all of the blame onto your shoulders and carry it like fuckin' weight?"

So many things become clear to me in that moment, it feels like a mighty flood rushing into my brain. I don't know what to address first. I don't know whether or not I should laugh or cry or both at the same time. I get it. I get her. Better than I have in awhile, better than I maybe ever did. I understand what she's thinking. At least I think I do.

"I didn't love you," she says defiantly and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. "I don't even remember the last few months of our relationship - not really. You deserved someone who could give you what you gave her, and I wasn't that girl. I wanted to be." She stops and kicks the sand angrily. "Just not as much as I wanted to be high."

Okay, I have this smirk. And I can't really control it. It just pops up when I know I'm right about something. Hell, I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time. This time, I feel it. I feel it twitching in the corner of my lip. "Tell yourself that, Tate," I say, my voice far more controlled than I think it should be. "You have to, right?" I ask, dropping to the sand with a shrug. Pulling my knees up, I rest my arms over them and stare out at the lake. The sunlight dances over it as though it has no clue that things aren't right on its shores. "I been in therapy for as long as you have, Sweetheart," I tell her with a cynical chuckle. "I know the tricks now."

I can read the shock on her face. Randy Orton in therapy? Why? The Randy she knew would never agree to such a thing. Guess I'm not the Randy she knew, am I? "Because of me?" she asks as she sinks to my side, her legs stretched out before her, absorbing the sun against their bronzed tone.

But I just suck my lip between my teeth and shake my head. Turning to her with another easy grin, I release my lip. "Because of me." Her eyes are wide and I return my gaze to the water. It's just easier to be honest if I don't have to look at her. "I'm not perfect, Tate. Never have been. And I've spent the last eighteen months blaming myself for this shit. Just as much as you have." I drop my head back and close my eyes, allowing the sunlight to wash over me. "One of the first things you learn in therapy?" She doesn't respond. "You can't fix anyone but yourself. Can't change anyone else. Only yourself."

"And if you blame yourself," she responds, her voice disconnected, as though she hadn't planned to say anything at all. "Then you can fix it. If it's all your fault, then you can make it all better."

I nod and sigh deeply. Two people who started in the same place, took off in two completely directions, and ended up right back at the same point again. That has to mean something, right? "Makes all this 'healing' mean something," I spew skeptically as I make air-quotes around the sappy therapy word.

Her neck rolls forward, her head dropping forward below her shoulders. "If you can't fix it all, what's the point in trying to fix any of it?" She risks a glance up and I turn my head to catch her eye. "It's fucking hard."

I know that it is. She may be addicted to substances, but I'm fucking addicted to her. And there's no rehab facility for that. There's no detox center to get her out of my system. There's no way to break free. Except to break away.

And I know, more than ever, that I don't want that. My arms extends around her, pulling her head onto my shoulder. I don't know where we go from here. I have no idea who we are, or what we're doing, or if this is even the smartest position to be in. But I know that it feels right. Just like it always did. And I can't make myself move.


	6. Admit it

**A/N: The last time I posted this chapter, it was only about a third of the chapter - I don't know what happened - I apologize to anyone who was supremely confused.**

**The Rest Will Follow**

July 24, 2007  
114 Days Sober  
3 weeks, 3 days out of rehab

* * *

My sponsor says that the best thing a recovering addict can do is find a job. Preferrably something that keeps your hands busy, that requires long hours of hard work that will keep your mind from wandering. But not something so impossibly strenuous that you feel the need to unwind with a stiff drink or a smoke of something intoxicating. 

Turns out, it's not so easy for someone like me to get a job, though. I have a degree in graphic media. Made one hell of a graphic designer in my day. But most magazines and newspapers have this weird thing about not wanting to hire a junkie, no matter how former she may be. So I had to set my sights a little bit lower.

That's okay, though. I know everybody at the diner anyway. They know me. It's not like they're expecting more than I can give. And Stu, the owner, is super understanding about me needing as many hours as possible. While most girls are trying like hell to get out of double shifts, I'm begging for them. And he always finds a way to give them to me. He's a good guy.

"Hey," a sweet voice interrupts me as I bus a table after nearly nine hours on my feet.

Turning, I smile and tuck my hair behind my ear. I haven't seen Maria since I got out of the treatment center. I've talked to her a few times on the phone, but she's been so busy with work that she doesn't get home very often. And when she does, she has family to visit and everything. I get that. And I haven't exactly been quick with the returning of the phone calls lately.

"Hey, Sweetie," I grin brightly and accept her half-hug while trying to balance a platter of half-eaten cheese fries. Ugh. How did I eat these things after a night of partying back in the day? They're nothing but grease. Brown, burnt grease. Nasty.

Maria watches me continue to clear the dishes from the table, her long legs crossed at the ankles as those huge brown eyes study me intently. "You got a break comin' up?" she finally asks. Her voice is lower in person than it is on television. And her Chicago accent is a little thicker. Means she's been home for at least a day.

Checking my watch, I nod toward the back corner booth and wipe the table top off. "Give me five?"

She turns and leaves me to take a deep, steadying breath. As difficult as this transition was supposed to be for me, it's really not that bad. At least, not yet. I've been busy, and spending all of my time with the Trudie and Kip. We keep each other honest, I guess. The nights are the worst, but I've been making it through those alright for the last week or so, too. Maybe I'll be alright after all.

I let Stu know that I'm taking a break and then flop into the booth across from my friend. It's weird, being here with her. I know that I have changed completely over the last few months. I've become a totally different person. At least I thought I had. But sitting here with my perfect, completely unchanged, best friend, I feel the insecurity creep back in.

Oh, it's not her fault. She's never been anything but the best of all friends to me. She's sweet, and loving, and absolutely genuine. But she's also miles of legs, great boobs, and bouncy hair. She's beautiful. And for someone like me, someone who has never fit that mold, it's intimidating. It's scary sometimes to think about just how short I fall from the standard of normal in her presence.

In order to calm my rapidly accelerating heart beat, I light a cigarette and smile at her across the table. Blowing a steady stream of smoke, I can't help nodding when she purses her lips and shoots me that knowing look. The one that says she knows I've been avoiding her. That there's something I'm trying to hide from her.

"You look good, Tate," she finally says softly.

I sink back and take another drag from my cigarette. "Shocking, ain't it?" I ask somewhat cynically, and I can't help the inward giggle at her reaction. "Thank you," I add before she can apologize about how she didn't mean it that way. They never do.

For another awkward moment, we sit in silence. I know she wants to talk to me about Randy, but I'm sure as hell not bringing the topic to the forefront of the conversation. I know what she'll say, and I'm sure I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear anyone other than my own conscience tell me that it's a bad idea to be talking to him on a semi-regular basis now.

She shoots another glance around the diner before her doe eyes settle back on me. She's biting her lip like she always does when she's not sure what to say. When she's not sure the one thing she wants to say will received openly. I may have spent the last few years in a burnt out stupor, but I've always been pretty observant. Especially when other people are uncomfortable around me, which, let's face it, was a not-small portion of the time.

Finally, she sips from her coffee and clears her throat. "So, how ya feelin'?" she asks in that ultra-serious way that you never hear on television.

"Good. I feel good." I do. Today, I feel good. It's touch and go sometimes, but today is good.

"Do you?" she challenges, her eyes squinting slightly as she tries to figure me, suss me out and see if I'm telling the truth. In her defense, I haven't always been the most honest person with my feelings.

But I nod. Post-rehab, honesty seems easier. Maybe it's the fact that I've been through so much shit, put so many people through so much, that telling the truth seems like the least I can do. Once you've stolen mass amounts of cash from your friends, embarrassed them at parties, and completely forgotten every important date, the truth can't hurt that bad, can it? "It's not a constant thing, trust me," I smile slightly, pushing a lock hair out of my eye, "but today is a good day."

There is a soft hiss as she expels the breath she's been holding on to. "Good," she nods, her eyes narrowing slightly. "So that means that you're just avoiding me for no reason at all then, not just because you're trying to hide a relapse or something."

So you might not know this, but our Maria? Girl's as sarcastic as they come. I've never met someone who can throw a snide comment in without you even realizing that she's mocking you. God, I miss her sometimes. "Why would you even think that?" I try weakly, even though I know she knows it's a front.

"Tate, I've been blowin' up your cell for weeks," Maria levels me with those eyes. Yeah, you think they're all seductive and alluring, but when she's pissed about something? They're downright scary. Like she's a Child of the Corn or something. Gah. Shiver.

I squirm uncomfortably, like a child who's just been caught with a baseball in her hand next to the broken window. "I know," I concede finally, lowering my eyes to the table top before meeting her gaze again. "I've been busy," I offer feebily. It's not a lie. I worked almost eighty hours last week. I have been busy.

"Busy with work?" she asks, her voice tinged with concern and a touch of that "I'm not buying your bull shit" tone.

"What?" I ask, a little too defensively. "I said I'm clean," I remind her with a dismissive shrug.

And she nods, which quickly turns to a shake. "No, I know," she assures me. She believes me - I can tell. I mean, she has to see it. Even just in the fact that I'm looking directly at her and not at one of the many versions of her I see dancing around in my head. I'm clear. She knows that much. "But you're still ignoring me," she adds.

I shake my head and light another cigarette with the dwindling embers of my first one. Gotta love rehab - breaks you of everything but nicotine. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't leave that place a complete chain smoker. "Maria," I start.

But she interrupts me. Not with a simple hand or a chuckle. Nope, she goes straight for the juggular. "Either you're avoiding me, or you're shoving me aside in favor of Randy."

Silence. The look on her face would be funny, if it wasn't close to the truth. Seriously, she looks like she's just shouted 'Voldemort' or something. "Ah," I finally nod slowly, drawing one leg up to my chest in the booth as I let a stream of smoke cloud against the window at my side. "Or I just don't wanna talk about it," I whisper honestly.

I don't. I don't want to talk about Randy. Because it makes my skin itch. It makes my foot tap and my tongue starts working against my teeth. It makes me want to take a hit of something strong. Something pure. Something that would give me a reason to hate him again. Or for him to hate me. Because he should. That's what I deserve.

"Or that," Maria finally backs down, her lanky frame slumping in her chair as she runs her fingers through the mound of sugar she's just poured on the top of the table. Great. Something else I'll have to clean up.

"Look," I start, feeling my defenses rise without warning. I put my feet on the floor and rest my elbows on the table, hoping like hell she'll recognize the stance. The one that says 'back the fuck off.' "I've talked to him, okay? A few times. But it's not a big deal."

He's not my boyfriend. Randy Orton is not my boyfriend. Not that we've had that conversation, but I'm not stupid. And I've yet to "prove" myself to him. Too much time. Too much hurt. Who even knows if there's anything left there? If there ever was? I mean, I would like to think that we were madly in love, but what do I know? I don't even remember a lot of the time I spent with him. What I do remember is good, but what he remembers? Totally different. I've found that out the hard way, in a conversation or two that didn't end on what you'd call 'good' terms. Usually ones that ended up with me shivering and crying for a drink in Trudie's room.

Maria smirks knowingly. "Not a big deal, huh?" she asks, tapping the table with her perfectly manicured nail. "You're obsessed with him, Tatum," she reminds me.

"Was," I correct. Before I met him, I used to pester her to introduce me to the Adonis on television all the time. And after we started dating, I was what could only be described as 'possessive'. And that's an understatement, trust me. Of course, I lived in a heightened state of paranoia, but that didn't make me any easier to deal with most times, I'm sure. "I've changed," I add.

I have. I'm not the same person. Dammit, why can't anyone else see that? Everything about me is different. But I'm still Tatum the Junkie to her. To all of them, I'm sure. The skepticism, though totally understandable, is more than I can handle sometimes. God, this was a good day. Was. "Whether you believe it or not," I hiss, sucking another drag of my cigarette as my gaze drifts out the window. "Nobody has to buy into it. I know it," I mumble more to the bird on the sidewalk outside the window than to my friend.

My fingers have started working against the bracelet on my wrist. The itching. It always starts in my wrist. Climbs up my arm like my cells are begging for something to numb them, something to make them comfortable again. Will there ever come a time when I'm comfortable in my own skin again? Sometimes I wouldn't believe it if you promised.

"Just tell me this," Maria says, reaching across the table to cover my fingers with hers. She lowers my hand to the table and stares at me until I look back. "I promise I'll let it go," she bargains with a half-smile, like her lips are saying 'truce' even though the words aren't coming out. "Do you wanna make it work with him again?"

I don't even tell my brain to scoff, but somehow the cynical chuckle passes over my lips as I look to the street again. "'Again' makes it sound like it worked the first time around," I point out. When she rolls her eyes and sinks back in her seat again, I mimick her with a roll of my own and rotate my shoulders back toward her. "Yeah, I do," I confess for the first time out loud. "I hope it works, okay?" I fucking hate being backed into a corner, but she just isn't going to let up until I tell her everything she can read all over me already. "I hope that things work out with Randy. I hope they progress, and I hope we get our happily-ever-after." With a raised eyebrow, I challenge her as the damned tears prick the backs of my eyes. "Happy?"

She nods, her tongue traveling slowly over her lips. "Sounds like a fairy tale ending," she speaks, and I can hear the tone of disbelief in her voice.

I can hear it because it's the same voice that screams in my head every time I talk to him, every time I teeter on the edge of falling in love again. Or further - I never really fell out, I don't think. It's the voice that says I want too much, that my expectations are too high. It's the voice that reminds me that I'm supposed to take baby steps, not fling myself into traffic. Not now. The one that constantly screams that I'm about to suffer more disappointment than I've ever had to deal with. Fuck.

"I don't need a prince to save me from the tower, Maria," I tell her, just the way I tell myself. "I don't want perfection." I can't fight the tear that escapes the corner of my eye and travels slowly down the side of my nose. "I just want Randy."

Maria nibbles on her lip again and then squeezes my hand. "I just want you to be happy," she speaks softly, but oh-so-clearly.

"Me, too," I agree. It is all I want. To be happy. I just can't imagine I'll ever truly be that way again without Randy.


	7. Intervention

**July 24, 2007**

And so it begins again. Another intervention. You'd think I was the one with a meth problem. Jesus, does John ever give up? I'll save ya the trouble of answering that. No, he doesn't. He never gives up on trying to save me from myself. I guess a part of me knows that I should be glad I have such a loyal friend. But the majority of me just wonders how he doesn't get a nose bleed so far up on that high horse.

I flop into the booth across from him and order my usual. Here, I have a usual. Because here is the bar that John always brings me to when he wants to have 'a talk.' I hope to God he doesn't think he's smooth, cause this shit is getting as old as we are. He doesn't even glance up from his Sidekick until I light a cigarette, and then it's only to shoot me a disapproving glare. Yeah, I know it's a bad habit. So is being a nosy little bitch.

"You showed," he finally says when he flips the device shut and turns his attention to me, his beefy hand wrapped around a beer bottle, which he clearly has no interest in drinking.

I just shrug. There's so much damn tension between us, the waitress keeps glancing over at the bouncer like we might start throwing punches at any second. "I said I would," is all I can manage to say. Well, all I can manage without a "bitch" thrown in on the end.

John just rolls his eyes and I have to slide further into the seat to keep from walking out. "Not like you've been available lately. Didn't know if you'd have something better to do," he baits.

Like I said, I hope he doesn't think he's smooth. He prods me more than my fuckin' mother, man. Does he really think I'm so damn stupid that I'm just gonna walk into some shit I don't wanna say? Jesus, sometimes I wonder why we're friends. "You wanna talk about Tate, man? Just cut the bull shit and lets get it over with, okay?" I motion to the table, as if to tell him he has the floor. "Say what you've gotta say."

He turns his head and clicks his tongue against his teeth. "So it's 'Tate' again, huh?" he asks, emphasizing the nickname I haven't really used much in the last couple of years. I can't. It's affectionate. I haven't been affectionate about her in awhile. I'm not sure I am now. But I know I don't like the way he's lookin' at me.

"Dude," I start, my shoulders rolling. I just wanna get outta here. Is that so much to ask? To be left alone to make my own decisions? My own mistakes, if that's what they turn out to be? "You already know I been talkin' to her. What do you want me to say?" Maybe if I can just tell him what he wants to hear, he'll leave me the hell alone about it.

Don't get me wrong. I know John's heart is in the right place. I do know that. But talking to her confuses me enough. Talking about her is ten times worse. I wasn't ready to let anyone in back when we were goin' through the shit, and I'm not ready to invite anyone inside the relationship, whatever it is, now. I just wanna be left alone. To think. To dwell. To fantasize.

"Tell me why," John says, his stance so relaxed, I imagine he's played this out in his head a thousand times. He knows exactly what he's going to say, and it doesn't matter what I counter with. He's going to play Dr. Phil whether I want him to or not. Why the fuck should I even have to be here? "I know you love her, man," he tries to sound like he's on the same page, "but tell me that you're gonna be smart about this."

This is one of those times where John's face irritates the fuck outta me. I lower my eyes to the beer in my hand because I can't even stand to look at his beady little ones. I can't stand the way his lips pout out when he's trying to be compassionate. And does his jaw have to be so fucking square? Fuck. "We're not even together," I counter. All this 'I care too much to let you do something stupid' bull shit is for girls and parents. Not for us. Not for me.

He clears his throat and peels the label from his bottle. I hate it when he does that. Every fuckin' drink. Every time. Always peels the label off the bottle, like it's the way you're supposed to drink. "You want it, though," he deduces and I clench my fist in the booth beside me.

More than I hate him butting in, I hate him being right. I hate that I want her as much as I've ever wanted her. That even though I know it's a horrible idea, I want to try it. I want to fly out to Chicago every free second I get. I want to feel her body against mine again, to hear her laughter in my ear, instead of just in the phone. I want to sit on her back porch and watch the sun come up while she rests her head on my chest. I want him to stop lookin' at me like he knows that about me. Like he knows everything about me.

"Dude, who the fuck do you think you are?" I spit out of nowhere. At least, he thinks it's out of nowhere. It's been building in my head for weeks. Now seems like as good a time as any to throw it out there. "You're not my fuckin' shrink," I add for good measure. If I'm gonna look like a pouty little boy, I might as well go all out, right? Go big or go home? Isn't that what they say?

"No," he shakes his head, his fuckin' box jaw tightening. "I'm your best friend. And I'm the one who watched this shit go down the first one. I'm the one who had an up close and personal seat for the first performance," he starts.

And I can't take it anymore. My fist sinks into the booth at my side, and he's lucky it didn't fly across the table at his face. "You didn't see shit, fucker," I shoot back, my voice raising enough to make the passing sorority girls jump. "Nobody saw a fucking thing up close and personal. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

If there's one thing that John doesn't do, it's back down. Even when he should. Even when he has no business stepping up to the plate. "Man, I'm just tryin' to tell you what I'm seein'. From my side of things."

But I don't give a fucking flip about his side of things. His side is irrelevant. "I've seen things from your side, John. I've looked at this thing from every possible fucking side, and I don't like your fucking view," I tell him, taking a swig of my drink before reaching into my wallet for a bill to cover my tab. This is bull shit. I never should have come. What the fuck was I thinking?

"Oh, give me a break," John rolls his eyes, trapping my hand against the table. He only moves when I jerk away from his touch, the sound of boiling blood pounding in my ears. "Orton, all of this drama, this tension with us, didn't even start until she got out," he tries again.

And I'm done. Standing, I drop a twenty on the table and run my hands over the skull cap over my head. "Bull shit," I shake my head, stamping the butt of my cigarette into the ashtray that had been between us seconds ago. "This drama didn't start until you started runnin' your fucking mouth," I growl. "You guys think you know. You and Maria. Hell, Vince thinks he knows." Shaking my head again, he pull my keys from my pocket. "You bitches don't know shit," I mumble as push the front door open and step into the balmy night air.

Fuckers. All of them. Nobody knows. Even though he doesn't follow me, I can hear John's voice in my head. I know exactly what he would say if I had stuck around. _Because you never let anybody in. You're so fucking scared of losing her again that you won't let anyone get close to either of you. _That's what he keeps telling me. But he doesn't get it, ya know? Because if he did, he would see that I can't let anyone get close to her, because I don't even have a handle on her. They can worry all they want that I'm getting too close, but I'm not.

Because she won't let me. Because she keeps telling me not to come to her, not to bother calling her back. She keeps saying that she doesn't want to be a burden, that she doesn't need constant supervision. And as badly as I want to grab onto her again and hang on for dear life, she just won't let me in. Maybe it's for the best. Maybe it's fate's way of telling me that I can't have her again. That we don't belong together. But damn if my own head is telling fate to shut the fuck up.


	8. The Shake Up

**The Rest Will Follow**

**August 12, 2007  
**_133 days sober  
__6 weeks 1 day out of rehab

* * *

_

I remember the therapist at the first rehab center giving me this huge explanation on why I was an addict. He said it was all physiology, science, or some shit. He used all these technical terms. I think he knew full well I didn't have a fuckin' clue what he was talkin' about, though. I mean, even if I had known a damn thing about body chemistry or whatever, my burnt-out brain didn't stand a chance of processing his technical bull shit.

Then, in the third place I was in, some psychotherapist tried to tell me why alcohol & drugs were so comforting to me. She told me about how it was like a security blanket for me, helped me feel safe and warm. My substances created a bubble from the outside world, the one I hadn't learned to deal with. The one that scared me beyond what I was willing to admit. Oh, and my personal favorite theory: it gave the perfectionist in me an excuse for failure. Something to blame other than myself. A way to, what's that word? Disassociate, I think? A way to disassociate myself from the fuck ups.

It wasn't until about twenty-five or thirty days into the last stay that I realized exactly why I thought they were all full of shit. It's not about science, or chemistry, or physics, or anatomy, or whatever. And it's not about all that psychological shit, either. It's about fuckin' boredom, man.

I know some people think that every day is a new challenge. Maybe it is for them. Maybe they wake up to a new slate, pregnant with possibilities. Maybe a new bird sings at their window every day. What the hell do I know about those people? Nothin'. But I know my life.

I wake up in the morning, take a shower, go to work, maybe hang out with some friends, and then go to bed. I wake up and do it all again. I did it before the problems started. I do it now. And it's so fucking boring I wanna pull my hair out by the roots and scream until I lose my voice.

The brilliant thing about a hit is that you never know how it's gonna take you over. You never know how it's going to travel through your body, or exactly how it's going to make you feel. Maybe it'll lift you up to the sky. Maybe you'll feel like you're flying. Maybe you will truly believe that nothing can fucking touch you. Or maybe it'll slam you down to the ground. Maybe you'll feel like a two ton brick is sitting on your chest, like you can't move. Can't breathe. Maybe it'll kick your ass all over the room. You never know.

And you don't know how you're gonna feel in the morning. You know you won't like yourself, but you don't know if you'll hear foreign voices in your head, or be completely alone. You don't know if there will be someone in the bed beside you, or if they'll be gone. You don't know if you can make it to the bed, or if you'll lay against the bathroom floor until the sun goes down again. You just don't know.

Crazy, right? Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I tell them that. Why the hell would anyone want to live like that? Why wouldn't you want to know what comes next? Why on earth would you want to go to bed wondering if you're even gonna wake up tomorrow? Why would you get outta bed wondering if you would ever make it back to that same place at the end of the night?

What kind of person longs for the shake up like that? Even if she knows that the surprises aren't always good? In fact, that they're almost never positive? What kind of person wants that for herself? Who in their right mind would long for that?

I don't remember a whole lot about my life before the addictions. Bits and pieces creep up on me sometimes, like scenes from a movie I saw when I was younger, but real memories are pretty much destroyed. Except that lately, in the last week or so, I keep thinking about the boredom. About the way it used to feel, before I started using. About how I just wanted something to change, something to keep me on my toes. It's not even excitement, really. It's just a stray from the beaten path.

That's what I want right now. More than anything in this world, I want to stray. I don't even want to be high today. Not really. When I called him, when I asked for something cheap and easy, something that wouldn't fuck me up too bad, I really didn't want the high. I just want some view other than the road I'm on.

The walls of this damn safe house are just fucking beige. The ceiling is just textured. The carpet is just flat. The window is just clouded. Everything is exactly the same as it was the day I moved in. The sounds around me, people moving through the halls, talking on the phone, getting in and out of the shower? The same sounds I hear every fucking day.

I could go to work, but it'll be more of the same. Same greasy tables needing wiping. Same regulars, wanting their coffee and 'usual' just the way they always want it. Same co-workers in the same uniforms walking the same path between the dining room and the kitchen. Nothing ever changes. And I'm so fucking bored. With all of it.

Part of me wants to call Randy, but even that would be the same. We would stumble through another greeting, settle into an easy conversation about movies or music or whatever the hell mundane bull shit we decide to talk about. Then we'll stumble through the good-bye, wishing we could say something about how we feel, but both trembling in fear of it being the wrong thing at the moment. Both of us scared to damage each other. Then we'll hang up the phone and I will hit myself in the head, just like I always do.

This little baggie is my only prayer of shaking things up. Trudie's visiting her kid today and Kip is out with his boyfriend. Nobody will even notice if I don't come home for awhile. I can just sneak out, tell 'em I'm headed to work. I can smoke one joint, quench the curiosity. I can just see how it will make me feel, satisfy that need for something different. And then I can sleep it off. Nobody has to know.

Grabbing my jacket from the end of the bed, I pocket everything I need to roll one joint, and stuff a few bills for dinner in my jeans. Maybe I'll cry, or laugh at nothing. Maybe I'll be filled with warm memories of, "Randy," I gasp as I pull the door open.

He's here. He's actually here. In my safe house. Just outside of my personal space. His blue eyes glimmer when he meets my face, but they cloud immediately. "Bad time?" he asks.

"Uh," I stammer, shaking my head. "No. I'm just," I start and shake my head again, laughing as I turn my face to the ceiling. "Surprised." I bite my lip. This is what I wanted. Something out of the ordinary. Something I wasn't expecting. This is what I needed. So why can't my hand stop lovingly carressing the bag of weed in my pocket? Why am I disappointed, just a little bit, that I won't be able to do what I had planned to do?

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything until I've followed him into the front yard and down the street a few feet. "I should have called first," he says when it becomes clear that I don't want to speak. "I went to the diner, but they said you called in sick," he adds.

Averting my eyes to the pavement, I pray to whatever god might listen that the blush isn't showing in my cheeks. I pray that he's full of even more surprises. Mostly, I want to be surprised by the fact that he's forgotten how to read my 'guilty' face. "I wasn't feelin' so hot earlier," I lie through my teeth, wishing that I could fall through the pavement.

Used to, when I was all hammered and fucked up, I didn't care if he was looking at me with those disappointed eyes. I didn't care if he didn't believe me. Hell, most of the time, I didn't even notice. Now I do, though. Now I notice the way his eyebrow shoots up and his gaze rakes over me, as though he's waiting for something to fall out of my pocket. As if he's checking up on me.

And my anger flares. For no good reason. The addict in me grows defiant and the urge to punch him washes over me. What right does he have to show up unannounced? To question me? To think I even want him here? Who fuckin' died and made him my keeper? "You shouldn't have come," I manage to hiss through clenched teeth.

You'd think I had punched him the face, the way he grimaces at my words. "I know I said I wouldn't, but," he starts, and fuck if I don't feel like the world's biggest bitch. It's not his fault that today is a bad day. It's not his fault that I can practically smell the sweet aroma of burning pot, and that I want it more than I want him right now. That's never been his fault.

But it's my reality. And if he's gonna be around me, he's going to have to learn to live with the fact that I'm not little Susie Sunshine all the fucking time. Dammit, I have bad days. And I can't plan them around his travel schedule. Who does he think he is, showing up like I should?

My skin starts to itch, the invasive hunger I know so well crawling through my veins. Fuck it all. I had a plan. I know I said I wanted a shake-up, but this wasn't what I had in mind. It never goes the way I plan it. Never. Dammit. I stomp my foot before I realize that I've done it. I'm biting my lip so hard I think it might start to bleed. And he's looking at me with those eyes. The ones that say he should have known better than to think I could really do it.

He pulls my hand out of my coat pocket before I can let go of the baggie. Drops my arm like I'm carrying Anthrax or something. Like I'm poisoned. And the tears spring to my eyes without permission. Caught. Shit. "Randy," I start, stuffing it back in my pocket.

But he's done listening. He turns and then turns again, anger flaring in his eyes. Oh, he's gonna get pissed at me? Now? When he's the one who showed up without warning? It's like a fucking roller coaster around him. Even if I tell myself that I wanted the unknown, I can't bring myself to admit I wanted it like this. Dammit, who am I kidding? I wasn't jonesing for something different. I was jonesing for a fix. One that I could have had if he'd just stayed away like we agreed.

"I'm such a fucking moron," he growls, shaking his head and then levelling me with an angry glare. "I told myself it was too good to be true. That I had to wait it out, to give it time. That it wouldn't really stick. I told myself," he grunts and pulls at his hair with one hand before wiping the palm over his face and shaking his head. His shoulders shrug and the fear begins to bubble in my throat. I know what comes next. "You were right," he concedes.

I wasn't right. No, I wasn't. I want to tell him that, to beg him to stay, but I just can't. I can't because I'm wrong. Because he was right and I was wrong. I fucked up. Even if I never rolled the joint or took a puff, I wanted to. I was going to. If he hadn't shown up, I was going to do it. Even if the entire cycle started over, even if it was the gateway to my complete undoing. I was going to do it anyway.

But looking at him, I don't want to. I don't want to do it. I don't want him to be right. I want to be better. I can be better. For him. I can get past the mood swings, and deal with the mundane. I can find ways to deal with it. I can talk to my sponsor, ask for ways to cope with this crazy emotional ride I've been on for the last few days. I can work through it. If he just gives me another chance.

"I don't know what's happening to me," I finally say, noting that my voice sounds wildly desparate and pleading. "One minute, I'm bored out of my mind, the next I'm crazy with thoughts of going back. I get angry, and then I'm weepy, and then I'm guilty. I can't control it. It's like my entire emotional system is going haywire and I can't fucking stop it," I try to explain, but he's just shaking his head.

With a hand on my cheek, he sniffles and I can tell he's trying not to cry. "I wanted," he starts and then stops, biting his lip and dropping his arm. It's as though the touch burned him somehow, the way his hand keeps balling and relaxing. "Fuck, I wanted it to work," he sighs. There is a finality in his expression when he finally meets my eyes again. "I hope you beat it, Tate. I really do," he says, fishing his keys out of his pocket. "I'm just sorry I can't be there to see it."

He presses his full, warm, inviting lips to my forehead, and then he's gone. And I'm left staring at his retreating form, my vision clouding as I clutch the bag in my hand. He's leaving? Just like that? Because I was in possession of something I didn't even smoke? Because this one falter, this one chink in the armor, is too much for him to handle? He's leaving.

Randy's done. He's out. And no amount of proving myself is ever going to be enough. I'm never going to be enough for him. Not anymore. I'm damaged goods. He doesn't want me. Who would? I'm a fucking mess. I was fooling myself to think that I could be fixed. That I could make it better. I was a fucking fool.

Glancing at the bag in my hand, I take a deep breath and make a decision. He was the reason. The one reason that I even tried this thing. Without him, what's the point?


	9. Not Thinking about Her Tonight

**A/N: I've thought about discontinuing this story a couple of times because the interest seems low. But a few of you, I know, are still reading it and I can't bring myself to stop writing it. I'm loving Tatum and Randy in all of their angsty, disfunctional glory. So I'm seein' this one through to the end. I hope you're enjoying it!

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**

**The Rest Will Follow**

August 13, 2007

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Eighteen month. Eighteen fuckin' months gone. Wasted. Guess it's my own damn fault for fallin' for it, ya know? I mean, they say love is blind, but damn. Apparently, it makes ya fuckin' stupid, too. Stupid enough to believe that a bitch is gonna change just 'cause she said she would. Stupid enough to believe all sortsa illogical bull shit. _'I don't know what's happening to me. I can't control it.' _Sob, sob. _Can't_, my ass. She just don't want to. 

And that's fine. She doesn't have to, I guess. I'm done carin' one way or the other. She wants to ruin her life, fine. Ain't my problem. Not anymore. I'm doin' what I shoulda done a long fuckin' time ago. Washin' my hands of all things Tatum. Fuck her. Who the fuck needs a relationship anyway? I work with some of the finest women in the world. And there are a thousand more fine bitches out there waitin' for a wink from the Legend Killer. Fuck Tatum Sharp. I don't fuckin' need her and her fuckin' habit.

For the last couple of years, I've hated company parties. Spent all my time thinkin' about whether Tatum had too much drink, if she bothered to show up. And if she didn't, I spent all my time thinkin' about what she was doin' to herself at home. But I ain't gotta worry 'bout that anymore, so I'm kinda lookin' forward to this little post-house show bash. They may not know it, but they're about to see the second coming of Randy Orton.

I step from my rental car and check my reflection in the mirror. Casual but still fine as fuck. That bitch doesn't know what she gave up. Her loss. But wait, I ain't thinkin' about her tonight. I'm dancin', chillin', and fuck, I'm gonna drink without thinkin' about her pathetic, hungover self. Cause I don't have to think about her. I'm done.

Pushing the door open with my shoulder, the pounding bass of the techno music reverberates in my chest. Sweat-slickened bodies glide against one another on the dance floor, girls shriek in approval to lines of the song, or in protest to the feeling of hands they don't recognize. Sometimes one of the guys will rent a place so we can party alone, sometimes they like to mingle with the people. Tonight, it's a mingling night cause I don't know half these people. 'Course, I haven't exactly been keepin' up on the 'team unity' thing lately, so I might work with some of these fools. Beats me. Doesn't matter.

By the time I order a drink, I feel a hand on my arm. Turning, I smile and offer John a half man-hug. Not that I'll ever tell him this, but John's a pretty smart guy, ya know? Maybe if I'da listened to him, I woulda felt this good a long time ago. 'Course, that's never gonna reach his ears. Motherfucker's head's big enough already. "'Sup, man?" I greet over the increasing volume of the music.

Fuck it if John doesn't give me another one of his stupid looks. This time, he reminds me of that puppy Tatum used to have. He used to sit on the floor beside the bed, lookin' at me all confused with his head tilted to the side while I was fuckin' my girl. The dog, not John. But that's the look John has now. Confused puppy face. "Thought you were in Chi-town," he says when we separate.

Maria is at his side, watching me with narrowed eyes. She's not so much confused as concerned. "Fuck, Randy, is she," she starts.

But I shake my head and hand the bartender a bill when he delivers my drink in a heavy glass tumbler. "Not my problem anymore, Sweetheart," I wink at her as I pound back the drink and order another before the man behind the bar has time to make change. "She made her fuckin' bed. She can lay in it alone," I add, rolling my eyes as I lean my forearm on the bar and scan the room for recognizable faces.

With her bottom lip between her teeth, Maria exchanges a look with John. Neither one of them believe me, I can tell. Maria doesn't believe that Tatum fell off the wagon, and John doesn't believe that I'm okay with it. But ya know what? I don't fuckin' care what they believe. I didn't come here for another shrink session. I've had enough of them in the last few months.

"Dude," John starts, his hand on my shoulder as I take my second drink from the top of the bar. "I'm sorry," he starts.

"No," I interrupt. I know what he's going to say, and I don't want to hear it. This is not a 'Let's Pity Randy' party. People are havin' a good time. I wanna have a good time. I don't wanna be psychoanalyzed or advised. I wanna get shit-faced. That's all. If I can look at some half-naked women while doing it? So much the better. "**I'm **sorry," I tell John. "Sorry I wasted my fuckin' time on a damn junkie." And with that, I roll away from the bar to find someone less irritating to hang out with.

I don't know when John got so fuckin' serious all the time. I remember the OVW days, and even the beginning of our time in the WWE. He used to be cool. He was the one that taught me how to make a beer bong. No, ya know what? I do know when he changed. It was when I started dating Tatum. I think it was the night she almost drowned herself in his pool. After that, it was all "How you doin'?" and "How's Tate holdin' up?" and "Maybe you should try to get her some help, man." All the fuckin' time. He changed. We changed. Guess that's one more thing I can thank my fuckin' ex for, huh?

But I'm not thinkin' about her tonight. I'm thinkin' about anything but her. Dropping to a leather couch near the wall, I watch a group of women dancing together, their jeans and skirts fighting in vain to cling to their rapidly swaying hips. Fuck, it's nice to see tanned, wet, nearly-naked skin. Been awhile. Well, not really that long, since I work around women dressed like this all the time. I've seen it. Just been awhile since I've noticed it. Or appreciated it. Or felt it.

That's my fuckin' problem right there. It's been almost two years since I fucked anything. After Tatum, I couldn't. Well, I probably could have. There were plenty of nights alone on the road, watchin' some trashy porn in my hotel, when I can promise you the equipment was workin' just fine. But I would think about Tatum and I just couldn't go through with it. I didn't want anybody else. Even for a fling. Yeah, love makes ya stupid, remember? Look at all that time I wasted holdin' out for that bitch. Fuckin' stupid, I tell ya.

"This seat taken?"

When I look up, her chest is heaving from the rigorous dancing that I've been watching, and I can't help but wish those enormous breasts of hers would just fall out of her tiny shirt. It's not much more than a napkin and a few pieces of string from what I can tell. It wouldn't be so hard to just . . . "Please," I motion to the couch at my side. "Sit."

Candace lowers herself into the place at my side, her barely covered chest brushing up against my arm. Fuck, she's hot. Literally. Even through my hooded sweatshirt, I can feel the warmth from her body against mine. "You here alone, Orton?" she asks, taking my drink from my hand and lifting it to her lips.

I watch as she swallows the cool liquid, her eyes closing and her head tilting as it courses down her throat. Couple of the guys told me awhile back that Candace had her eye on me, that she wanted to make a move, but that Maria had told her to back off. Told her that I wasn't in any place to start something new. Fuckin' Maria. "I am," I answer her, a smirk playing on my lips as she meets my eye and flips her silken hair over her shoulder.

Shit, she's hot. I already said that, didn't I? Hell, I don't know what I'm thinkin' anymore. And I don't know what she's saying, though her lips are moving. I don't know because she's running her index finger up and down my arm, her eyes darting from mine to my mouth and back again. I don't know because she keeps pressing herself closer to me, because somehow my hand has found it's way to the inside of her denim-encased thigh. I don't know because I can't stop picturing how those full lips, and those huge breasts would look wrapped around my . . . "I been watchin' you for awhile now, Orton," I finally hear when I snap myself out of the filthy thoughts invading my mind. If I don't stop, I'm gonna lay her on this couch and give the whole club a show.

"Oh yeah?" I ask, reaching my free hand across our bodies to push a sweat-dampened strand of hair behind her ear. "Like what you see?" I ask.

She nods slowly and leans in, her lips so close to my ear that I can feel her breath all down the side of my neck. "So far," she whispers suggestively. She pulls back just enough to see the heat flush my neck and then presses her full lips to the skin just below my earlobe before adding, "Why don't we go back to my room and you can show me the rest."

Now? My conscience picks now as the right time to creep up? That irritating voice in the back of my head has to make itself heard at this very moment? While I've got a horny, half-naked woman begging me for what I want to give her? Now would be the time for it to make it's grand entrance? Fuckin' A. Candace is kissing a trail down my neck and I'm still rubbing circles against her thigh with my thumb to keep her in place. Obviously I don't feel so bad. So why can't I stand up?

Because I know that I'm not ready to start something new. Because, no matter how badly I want to cut her out, I can't stop thinking about Tatum. Even if it's just to hate her, I can't stop seeing her face, hearing her voice. I can't put her out of my head, and until I can, I'm not sure it's fair to involve someone else in my shit. Fuckin' Tatum.

No, ya know what? That shit's not so much her fault as it's Felicia's. Fuckin' therapist tellin' me all that shit about how admirable it is to think about other people's feelings. Now I believe that shit, and I don't know how not to. I don't know how to take Candace home, fuck her upside down and inside out, and then walk away. Not anymore. Fuck, why can't I do that anymore?

"I'm not really," I start, pulling away from her and hating myself for it. I can be that guy. I used to be that guy. I should still be that guy. That guy wouldn't have put up with so much shit over the last two years. That guy wouldn't fuckin' care what Candace expected. That guy would think with his dick. Maybe I'm just outta practice, ya know? Maybe I just need to try it. Just look her in the eye, smile, and ask her if she's ready to leave. That's what I should do. But, of course, that's not what comes out of my mouth. "Look, Candace, you're great and everything . . . "

Rolling her eyes, she stands from the couch and rests her hands on her hips. "I'm not a moron, Orton," she huffs. "I know you're still hung up on your girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, whatever she is. I don't really fuckin' care, though. I'm horny as fuck and you are, by far, the hottest guy in the room. I got a itch, and you're the one I want to scratch it." With a sly, sexy smile, she tosses her hair again. "'Course, if you aren't feelin' it, I can find someone else, but dammit, I'm gettin' laid tonight."

I know she doesn't understand what she just said. I know she doesn't realize that she said the words that make me harder than anything else she could have possibly said. Standing, I nod toward the door. "Let's get outta here," I rest a hand on her bare back and lead her toward the door.

She couldn't possibly know that '_you are, by far, the hottest guy in the room_,' would be the thing that got me off my ass and out of the club. There's no way that she could have predicted that '_you're the one I want' _would be the key to landing me in her bed. But you spend two years giving everything you have to someone, every damn thing that you have to give, and end up in second place, behind a bunch of bottles and pills? You'll take the ego stroke where you can get it, too.

We say good night to our teammates as we pass and step into the balmy, Atlanta night. Humidity hangs in the air and Candace wipes her hair from her face as she slips her hand into mine and nods to her left. I follow her gaze, only to find John rubbing Maria's back as she holds her phone to her ear and struggles to wipe tears from her eyes, her gaze fully focused on the sidewalk. Fuck. I was so fucking close to getting out of here. Shit.

John catches my eye and waves me over. I don't wanna go. I wanna get outta here before they can share the news I know they're waiting to share. It's fuckin' Tatum. I know it is. Don't ask me how. I just do. "Give me two seconds," I whisper to Candace, leaving her in her place at the curb before making my way to my friends. "What?"

Nodding, Maria ends her call and holds her phone in both hands against her chest, her doe eyes glistening with unshed tears when she looks into my face. "That was Tatum's sister."

My heart drops into my toes. Tatum's not close to her family. Her dad disappeared when she was young. I never met him. I met her mom and her two sisters at the intervention that they staged for her back before we broke up. They wanted her to get help, and she refused. And they cut her off cold. Told her they couldn't stand by her if she wasn't going to try. She was so pissed on the way home that night. Told me they could all go to hell for all she cared. Said even if she had a problem, she wouldn't want them there. Said even if she decided to get treatment for a problem she didn't have, that was back when she thought she didn't have a problem, that she didn't want them to see her get better. Not if they could turn their backs on her like that.

Even through the last couple of years, through all of her rehab and her roller coaster into sobriety, she hasn't invited them in. We even talked about it on the phone one night a couple weeks back. Said her sponsor wanted her to get in touch with her family, but she wasn't going to. Said she still hated them for abandoning her, and she wasn't ready to believe that it was for her own good. Said they didn't deserve to see her healthy because they didn't want to see her sick. I laughed that night and told her that it was nice to see rehab hadn't beaten all of the stubbornness out of her. And she laughed, too. Said the only way she would see her family again was if she was on her death bed and the doctors called them. Figured, at that point, she couldn't really stop them.

I can't say anything. I don't know what to say. I know what it means if her sister is calling, but my brain doesn't want to accept it. I can't deal with this shit. Not anymore. This is why I walked away. I don't wanna see this. Don't wanna watch her kill herself. Twice now. I've walked away twice. Why can't they see that I'm trying to avoid this shit? Why can't they let me?

"She was in a car accident," Maria tells me when I don't answer. "It was raining and the roads were slippery and the other driver lost control." She sniffles and looks over my shoulder to see Candace still waiting for me. "She was bleeding internally, but they can't be sure about her other injuries until she wakes up. If she wakes up."

If she wakes up. She could die. And the last thing I said to her was that I couldn't be there for her. The last thing I thought about her was even less admirable. I've spent the entire night thinking about how fucked up she is and how much I don't care about her. I know it's a lie. You may think I'm foolin' myself, but I know the truth.

"Randy," Candace's voice calls to me and I hold up a finger, shooting her my most convincing smile.

When I return my eyes to Maria's moist face, I feel a stab in my gut. I don't want Tatum to suffer. In fact, it's been my greatest fear for as long as I can remember now, watching her fall apart, watching her die. But more than I don't want it to happen, I don't want to see it. "I gotta get outta here," I mumble, moving away before they can stop me, before they can give me anymore sad eyes and pitiful faces. I grab Candace's hand and drag her to my car. I need to lose myself in her. Now more than ever.

Maybe Tatum was fucked up and lost control of her car. Maybe the road was just slippery and it was the other driver's fault. I don't know what to believe when it comes to her anymore. I don't know. I just know that I can't keep caring. No matter how bad I want to.


	10. Dancing Strawberries Are Not a Good Sign

**The Rest Will Follow**

August 23, 2007  
_0 days sober  
__10 days relapsed  
__7 weeks, 4 days out of rehab

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_

The walls aren't supposed to be red, are they? With those turquoise swirls? Seriously, I don't think they're supposed to be. And I'm almost positive that they're not supposed to be moving - the patterns, not the walls. Or are the walls moving? I can't be sure. I think it's just the swirls, though. Yeah, definitely the swirls are moving. And I think there might be glitter in them. Who paints glitter on the walls? I know I didn't paint glitter on the walls.

I know, of course, that there are not really swirling patterns on the walls. I know that, in my head. But they still look like they're moving, which can only mean one thing.

I'm high.

One hundred percent for sure, I'm floating like a kite. If the dancing paisley on the walls didn't tip me off, the giant, mutant, dancing strawberry that keeps waltzing into my line of vision definitely would. He's not supposed to be here. If I had invited him, he would be tap dancing.

I know why this is happening, ya know? I remember everything that happened. I was on my way back from Dex's - I was so pissed off and freaked after Randy left me on that sidewalk. And, as Dex always used to tell me, 'Why freak when you can tweak?' So I called him and I headed over there. All I picked up was an eight-ball, but it was going to be enough. Just enough to take the edge off, to make everything better, to ease the ache of knowing that Randy was never coming back.

And then I pussied out. Half-way back to the safe house, I looked at that baggie in my hands, and I totally wimped. For the first time in my life, I was scared about how the drugs would effect me. I was scared that it had been too long, that I was going to die or something. I know it's not totally rational, but no junkie is totally right in the head, ya know? So I panicked. Driving down Lakeshore Drive, rolled down my window, and tossed the eight-ball into the rain.

One of the biggest struggles for an addict is finding the delicate balance between your sober self and your addiction. It's about knowing where one ends and the other begins. And until that day, on the way back from Dex's, my line was so blurred. Oh, I had talked to my therapist, ad nauseum, about goals. Where I was going. What I wanted out of life. Who I was without the drugs. I talked until my tongue was numb. But talking is easy in rehab. You can't do anything else, so you might as well speculate. Imagine the best-case scenario.

But once you get out, and even when you're still in, that little voice is whispering in your ear from the seat in the back of the class. It doesn't tell you that you're a complete failure, just asks questions to make you doubt your resolve. Who's gonna want you now? Who would hire a junkie? How can you expect to stay on the wagon when you've failed so many times before? What kind of future can you possibly hope to find for yourself? What does it even matter if you can't stay sober? It's not like it's the end of the world, right?

Doesn't really matter if you want to believe that you can, you can't help wondering if the voice is right. And it doesn't matter if you want to believe the voice, you can't help wondering if you might be able to beat it. It's a total tug of war, and it never stops. Or, it feels like it's never going to stop.

I'm not gonna bull shit ya. I mean, I haven't to this point - why start now? It's not like, in that moment in the rain, that I knew exactly who I was without my addiction. It's not like the future spread out like a bright sunrise on the horizon. In fact, I wasn't any closer to knowing who I am then than I have been for years.

But I knew, when I drove past our spot on the beach, exactly who I wasn't. I'm not a junkie. Not anymore. I'm not tied to it. It doesn't control my life. I do. I control what I do. Even if Randy IS gone. Even if my life is forever changed and I don't recognize it in the morning. This is my life and I don't need any "foreign substances"

That was my mindset. For about ten seconds, that was what I really, honestly, genuinely believed. And then that damn driver.

Fuck! I'm high again. Can you sue a hospital for reintroducing you to the shiney, happy feeling? Because that's what this is. It's the good kind of high. The one that blocks pain and makes me giggle for no reason at all. Well, not for no reason. There's a waltzing strawberry that I'm finding pretty fuckin' funny at the moment.

I don't fuckin' want to be here. I don't want to be like this. I don't want to be this girl. Not anymore. And yet. Motherfucker. What the fuck was his problem? Who thinks that searching your fuckin' satellite radio in a torrential downpour is a good idea? Who the fuck was this guy, caring more about his fucking Dave Matthews Band than my sobriety? Fuck, I hate this. My body doesn't, but my brain is in hell.

I woke up the day after the accident, long enough to see my mom and my sister and politely ask them to leave. Okay, so 'politely' might be an exaggeration, but I refuse to take responsibility for what I say or do when I'm high against my will. I told them that I never wanted to see them again, and I meant it. I pretended to be asleep until they left three days after that. I've watched some television, but none of it really makes sense. Neither does anything that the doctors tell me.

Something in one of my legs is shattered. I'm going to have to have surgery, I guess. My neck hurts, but it was something about a splash or a . . . a . . . . whiplash. Nothing broken there. My face? Well, I'm the first to admit I've never been a classic beauty, but the bruises and gashes on my cheeks and forehead are fuckin' picturesque, let me tell ya. I'd probably be curled up in the fetal position, crying about my broken body, if I could feel it. Oh, ya know what? I wouldn't, because I can't move my fuckin' leg.

"Hey, you," a voice sounds from the door way and I look up to see Maria smiling brightly.

I love my Maria. I really do. She's been here for two days, by my bedside. She was here when I told her that I couldn't do this, that I wasn't going to be able to get past it. When I finally explained that I wasn't talking about the physical rehab, but the addiction part, she was here to assured me that I was going to kick it again, and that she was going to make sure of it. I don't know how she plans to do that, but my brain hurts if I think about anything but the strawberry for more than thirty seconds, so I guess it'll have to wait for another day.

I motion to the chair beside the bed and she moves to it quickly, pulling her laptop from her bag. "Okay," she starts. "I thought we would take a break from the magazines and do the online gossip thing for a change." She fires up the computer, but she doesn't look at me.

I know I look like a mutant. Like a big-faced, mutant freak from another planet. A really unattractive planet. But is it really so bad that my best friend can't stand looking at me? Seriously? "Maria," I say firmly.

Lifting her eyes, she glances at me and then looks back to her computer. She's such a perfect picture - silky hair falling over her shoulder, pouty lip trapped between her pearly, white teeth, long legs propped up against the side of the bed, wide, bright eyes wide with concentration. My best friend is pretty spectacular, but she's fuckin' irritating right now. "Hm?" she asks distractedly as she enters her password and ignores the beep of the blackberry that is piercing the air.

"You gonna get that?" She shakes her head. "Because you don't wanna talk in front of me?" Again, she shakes her head, but never lifts her eyes. "Can you please fuckin' look at me? So I don't feel like a complete freak of nature?"

Jesus, that was a stupid move. There is a fine mist in her eyes, as though she is a scolded child, and I feel guilty in an instant. I don't want her to pity me. This wasn't my fuckin' fault. I was trying to be good. I had just done the right thing. This isn't my fault, and I'm not going to let people feel sorry or disappointed because of that.

Clearing her throat, Maria shook her head. "It's not the way you look, Tate. Not at all, Sweetie." She tucks her hair behind her ears with both hands and sets her computer onto the table at her side. "I just . . . I don't know how to do this, ya know? I don't know how to keep your spirits up. I do this all the fucking time, ya know? I visit people in the hospital all the time, for work." Shaking her head, she stands and lets out a frustrated groan. "This isn't work, though, ya know? This is my best friend with her shattered hip and a huge IV drip. This is bull shit."

Okay, I've known Maria for a few years now - at least five. And I honestly don't think I've ever heard her use the word 'fuck.' Even drunk, she doesn't lose her cool. So either something deeper is going on with her, or I'm really fucked up right now. "You don't have to pretend to be anything other than who you are, ya know?" I tell her, my eyes fighting to focus on her instead of the banana that is now asking the strawberry if it would like a partner against the window. "I don't need you to keep my spirits up, 'Ria." She looks at me with a guilty face that says she never been to burst out like that. "I have drugs for that," I smile.

Rolling her eyes, she sinks back into her chair with a 'thud,' propping her feet back onto the bed. "Just sucks, ya know? I mean, you've been working so hard. And you've been doing so good. I mean, it just sucks that this shit has to happen now."

I want to agree with her. I do know that it sucks. But I just can't. The morphine drip at my side beeps, and another rush of 'happy' floods my brain. Sweet Jesus, that's like . . . uh . . . whew. _Oh, Mr. Strawberry, just one little tap dance. Please? Ms. Banana will show you how. Show him, Banana. _Yeah, I know, I'm going crazy. And I know that Maria is watching this internal dialogue, her head turned to the side like the cute, little puppy that she is. Like a cocker spaniel. Or a Pekinese. Shih tzu. Like a chi-WOW-ah. Wow. Wow. Wow.

"You okay?" I hear Maria ask, and all I can do is smile, my mouth still forming the word 'wow' as I point, sort of, to the IV at my side. This is the good stuff. The shit you couldn't buy on the street. Correction. The shit that I wasn't brave enough to buy on the street. The shit that can seriously fuck you up. "Okay," Maria nods, standing and running her hands over the thighs of her pants. "I'm gonna go call John, and I'll come back when you come down a little bit."

I nod, mostly because the motion of my head moving up and down doesn't hurt when the drugs are coursing through my veins. The absence of pain is fun. I like it. A lot. "Tell the boys I said 'hi.'" She agrees with a nod and starts for the door. "OH!" I burst out, because the sound of my own voice is hilarious right now. "And ask Randy if he'll come visit me. I need to see him. I need to tell him I'm not a fuck up and a junkie, okay? And tell him that I'll sacrifice Mr. Strawberry to prove it. We'll dip him in chocolate an eat him together. He won't mind. He knows he was bred for market."

She leaves and I turn my face back to the fruit by the window, assuring Mr. Strawberry that I was only kidding and that Maria won't tell Randy anything anyway. She won't tell him because it will only prove his point - that I'm destined to be an addict forever, whether I want to be or not. That I'm destined to be a junkie. That we will never work because I am seriously fucked up. God dammit, somebody tell the walls that paisley can't move like that. And that glitter . . . fuckin' glitter paint.

Okay, I need to take a nap. Last night, in my dream, I thought of the perfect way to get Randy back again. Maybe tonight I'll think of one that doesn't involve tying him up and throwing him into the trunk of my car.


	11. Nothing Better to Do

**A/N: There are 4 or 5 more chapters of this story to post - only one more left for me to write. I'm uploading most of them to my documents que today, so I should be able to post a chapter every couple of days for the next week. I'm not exactly sure what it's going to feel like when I actually finish a story - it's been so damn long. But this one is almost over, kiddies. A huge thanks to everyone who's been reading it - especially to those of you who have left me reviews. It means a lot to me, more than you know, really. So thanks. And Enjoy!**

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**The Rest Will Follow**

September 1, 2007

* * *

Ya know, I have better things to do. Working out. In-store appearances. Talking through my match with Cena. Plenty of better things to do than sit on a fucking airplane, headed to Chicago again.

I swore I wasn't going to do this. I swore that I didn't care anymore. That I couldn't care. But fuck if I wasn't ordering the tickets before I could talk myself out of it. If I hadn't talk to Maria, I wouldn't be here. If she hadn't told me the extent of Tatum's injuries, I could go back to not caring. If I didn't have to work around her friends, our friends, I wouldn't have to know what she was doing at all. And I wouldn't have to feel anything for her anymore.

I told Felicia that it would be easier not to think about Tate right now if I wasn't in the wrestling industry. Yeah, she looked at me like that, too, but hear me out. If I didn't know how painful bruised ribs could be, how painstaking physical therapy is, how many painkillers you have to take to numb a shattered bone, then I wouldn't be so worried about her. If I didn't know what she was feeling right now, I wouldn't have to feel the guilt that's been eating at my gut for weeks.

Candice was everything I needed her to be that night in her hotel room. She was voracious and aggressive. She made it easy to lose myself, to fuck Tatum out of my mind. She didn't want romance or sweet love making by candlelight. Straight up, hard, relentless fucking. That's all she wanted from me, and that's all I needed from her. And it worked.

Until the sun came up the next morning. She was gone when I woke up, which was good, because she didn't see me fighting tears. I don't consider myself a pussy, not even close. But when I realized what I had done, while the woman that I love was laid up in a hospital, fighting for her life? I just couldn't take it. I let her down. I did the one thing I had always promised I would never do. I walked away when she needed me the most. I ignored her pain and I pushed her out of my life.

I'm a liar. In more than one way, really. I lied to Tatum when I said I'd always be there for her. I lied to John and Maria when I told them that I didn't care what she was going through, when I said that I was fine. I lie to Felicia every time I tell her that I'm not thinking about Tatum. The worst thing, though, is the fact that I lie to myself all the fucking time.

I tell myself that I don't love her anymore. I don't want to be with her. I don't care what becomes of her. I don't need to know that she's okay, or that she's not. I try like hell to convince myself that it doesn't matter, that she's just a part of my past. But who the fuck am I kidding? Honestly? You know as well as I do that I'm not going to get over her. Not when I know she still needs me. We need each other. We keep each other grounded. We both need that. We can't NOT be together. I can't just walk away.

I have to see her. Even though John told me it's probably not the best thing right now. Even though Maria told me that Tate needs some time, that she's been through too much lately to worry about a reconciliation. Everybody's been saying the same thing since she got out of rehab, ya know? We need to take it slow, that I should worry about letting her heal before I worry about working on our relationship.

But ya know what? Fuck that. We can get through this. Tatum and I can get through this together. I know that we can. We just have to try. And we're going to beat this thing together - we're gonna get her all healed up and back on the sober path together. And then we're going to sit back and reap the benefits of a clean lifestyle together.

I know I sound a little optimistic, maybe even idealistic. But let me tell ya something, okay? I used to be the guy who ran away from bad decisions and difficult situations. I was the guy who ran away from the Marines when I realized it wasn't what I wanted. I'm the guy who ran way from Tatum when it wasn't easy. I was a quitter, but I'm not now. Not anymore. And I'm not giving up on Tatum. I'm not giving up on us.

I should call when I land. Maria finally broke down and told me where she is when I told her that there was nothing she could do to stop me from going back to that safe house. She finally told me that Tate's not at the safe house at all, that her doctors and therapists said that it wasn't feasible for her to continue living on the second floor. With her broken bones, she can't climb the stairs, so she had to find somewhere else to live.

I was wrong. I know, it sounds weird to me, too, but it's true. I thought that Tate was using again, that she was hopeless. I really did think that she had failed - I guess, in some ways, I always expected her to. Didn't want to believe it, of course, but couldn't help that nagging doubt that told me this time wouldn't be different than the others. I guess I've always just assumed she wasn't strong enough to keep up with sobriety.

But then Maria told me that she had to find a place to live while she was recovering from her injuries, and that she chose to go back to rehab. Actually, she demanded it. Maria told her that she was welcome to recuperate at her house, but Tatum told her that she didn't trust herself to take her pain killers responsibly. She insisted that Maria take her and make sure that she got checked in.

Even as I take my luggage to the rental car kiosk, I can't help smiling. Sure, our last meeting sucked ass. I walked away, but I know now that I shouldn't have. And I know that she's going to be needing a hand to hold. The road to recovery won't be easy for her. Nothing has ever been easy for Tatum. But she's going to need a shoulder to lean on when things get hard, and I'm more determined than ever to be that rock for her. And when she finally kicks this thing in the ass? I'm going to be the one celebrating with her.

It took a horrible tragedy for me to see the truth, but I get it now. Tatum is the one for me, and I'm not goin' anywhere. Never again.


	12. Pain Is Temporary

**The Rest Will Follow**

**September 2, 2007  
**_0 days completely sober  
20 days relapsed  
(on doctor-monitored pain killers)  
__5 days back in rehab

* * *

_

Ya know, when I was younger, my life's goal was to come up with a famous quote. That's it. Just to say something so brilliant that nobody would ever forget it. Something profound. Something that makes everyone who hears it go "That is so true. Why didn't I think of that?" Just one quote and I would have been happy.

Well, my new therapist, Zach, has been reading quotes to me over the last week or so, trying to put my pain into perspective. Wisdom from people who achieved that one thing I used to dream of. Brilliance. Profundity. Things like, "The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing." That's Herodotus. The worst pain, huh? I'm betting that our good friend Hero . . . whatever . . . never shattered his hip in a head-on car collision.

Or, what about this one . . . "Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose the pain." That one's William Faulkner. Yeah, Slick Willie thought he had it figured out, I guess. But it's better than "Pain is weakness leaving the body," which is apparently a motto for the Marines. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the Marines fully believe that. My brain isn't so easily swayed, though. To avoid the seering pain that shoots through my abdomen every time I breathe too deeply, I would cling tightly to my weakness. It doesn't need to leave my body, thanks.

The only thing that Zach has said over time that hasn't pissed me off or made me roll my eyes more than once while he was reading it was something from Lance Armstrong. "Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, that lasts forever." It resonates because I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to quit this rehab thing in the last five days.

I know that I need to be here - I know that I need trained professionals to help me balance my pain killers with my physical therapy. I need someone to watch me, to make sure that I don't become dependent on any substance again. I need it. Don't confuse that with me liking it, though.

In fact, it fucking sucks. If I could just take a moment to lay a PSA on ya, kids, it would be this: Don't ever become a recovering drug addict. If you're gonna light up, commit and don't look back. Because, if by some unfortunate twist of fate, you get into a massive car accident, or any kind of accident really, and you're in recovery, and want to stay that way? It's gonna be the most painful thing you've ever experienced. It's going to feel like your insides are ripping apart, slowly, and it's going to make you cry. Pretty much all the time.

And if you decide to stay clean during the recoup? Your going to think about getting high all the fucking time. Every time you ache, you will remember how easy it would be not to, how quickly you could make it all go away. Seriously, you will think about it every second of every day. You're going to think about it when you're in physical therapy. When you're in psychotherapy. When you're eating dinner. When you're watching television. When you're sleeping. All. The. Time. And you just have to remind yourself constantly that pain is temporary. That it WILL pass eventually. That quitting is the only part of the process that I absolutely CAN'T survive.

Ugh. Ya know what? When I was high, I used to hate optimism. Hell, if I'm honest, I hated it before I started using. It's probably part of the reason I started in the first place. Because I wanted to pretend that nothing ever affected or excited me. Anyway, as a naturally pessimistic person, the whole 'I think I can' mentality makes me wanna vomit. I'm not sure I know what to do with myself now that I'm one of those people who actually wants to see the glass as half full, to believe that I can beat this thing. I don't know how to be a survivor.

Zack says I don't really have to know how. It's instinctual. It's the reason that I fight through the pain that I hate so much, that I tell myself to push on when all I want to do is quit. He says it's the reason I keep telling myself I can come back from my injuiries without falling back into my addiction. It's the reason I came back to Oasis in the first place. I guess he's right. It sure as hell wasn't for the food.

"Come on, Tatum! Focus!"

I don't know if Randy has told you this already, or maybe I have, I don't really remember. But I don't like to be yelled at. At all. Especially when I feel like the entire left side of my body is engulfed in white hot flames. "Fuck off, Roger," I retort without thinking, my foot hovering a couple inches from the floor. There are tears streaming down my face and it is taking everything I have to hold this position for the ten-seconds he has asked of me. Is my mind wandering? Yeah. Because I've burned out most of my attention span. Sue me.

He watches me squeeze my eyes shut and I can't help the grunt that escapes my throat. I sound like a rabid animal. Hell, I feel like a wounded animal. If I could walk, at all, I would be up his ass right now. Of course, chasing him around in a wheel chair probably wouldn't have the same effect, would it? Fuck it. "Gahhhh!" The scream rips through the room before I can stop it, reverberating off of the stark, sterile walls around me.

"Dude, you think it's time to let up a little?" a deep, concerned voice sounds from the doorway.

My eyes fly to the voice and I nearly fall off the table. What the fuck? "What the hell are you doing here?" I manage to squeal. It's really not so much a squeal as a mangled kind of animal tone, but I'm in pain, shock, and my heart is in my throat, so what ya get is what ya get.

He smirks that arrogant-ass smirk. That sexy-as-hell grin that I can never get enough of, no matter how much I try to pretend that I don't want or need to see it. Clearing his throat, I watch as a slight blush creeps up his neck and bleeds into his cheeks. Randy's not the kind of guy who's used to people NOT being happy to see him. And it's not that I'm not happy. I'm just . . . confused.

With one hand on the back of his head and the other in the pocket of his hoodie, he looks at the floor and then at me. Like a little boy about to ask his mother for something he knows she'll never go for. God damn him for being so fucking adorable. So sexy without even trying. If the pounding in my chest didn't create agonizing pain and make it impossible to breathe, I might launch myself into his arms. Seeing as he left me on the sidewalk and practically drove me here, I'm thinking it's better that I can't move.

"You got somewhere to be now?" he asks, making no effort to move toward me.

Checking the clock on the wall, I can honestly say that I have forgotten that anyone else is in that room. Randy's always had this ability to make everything else fall away. At least all of the other people. When I see him, it's like nobody else exists. Fuck, he's pretty. "Uh," I stammer to refocus my thoughts and cringe when I try to straighten my posture against the training table. "I'm supposed to rest up before my therapy session in an hour," I tell him dumbly, as if I've lost all control of my own vocal chords.

But if anybody knows me, it's Randy. He just smiles and nods to the wheel chair at his side. "I'll walk you to your room," he offers.

I can't argue. It's like I'm physically incapable. I know he left me standing there. He didn't believe in me. He thought I was a failure. According to Maria, he had an interesting fling with that tramp Candice to convince himself that he was over me. There are about a million reasons for me to tell him to go to hell. There are a million reasons to send him away. But when I feel him behind me, gripping the handles of the chair, I can't remember any of them. When he squeezes my shoulder and starts to push me out of the room, I can't remember a single reason why having him here is a bad idea. Not one.


	13. Couples' Therapy

**The Rest Will Follow**

**September 5, 2007

* * *

**

How in the hell did she talk me into this? I did my therapy. All of it that the company assigned me to undergo. Felicia said I made marked improvements, several emotional breakthroughs. So why the fuck do I have to be sitting in this office for more? I didn't come here to be analyzed. I didn't come here to pour my heart out to some shrink. I came here to support my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Soon-to-be girlfriend again. I don't know what to call her, but I'm here for Tatum. Not for me.

Yet here I am. One smile and a sweet little invitation from the lips of the woman I love and I'm shifting in my seat like a kid about to be interrogated by the federal government. I wasn't this nervous when they asked me all of those steroid questions a few months back. I wasn't this nervous the first time I appeared live on Raw. I wasn't this nervous . . . ever.

Why am I nervous? I don't know. It's not like this is going to change anything. I don't care what this guy says, I know the truth. Tatum knows the truth. We both know that it doesn't matter what he thinks about our relationship. We belong together. We need to be together.

"You're pretty quiet," Tatum's voice interrupts the silence in the room as she reached over the to take my hand.

I can't help gripping it, holding on. Seems like I've been doing that since I got here. Holding on like she might slip away again. She did once. I let her go. I'm not doing it again. "Don't know what to say," I admit with a soft chuckle. I never know what to say to her anymore.

I think that's the weirdest part of this whole . . . thing. There was a time when we could say anything to each other, even if it hurt. That was one of the things that I loved the most about her, from day one. I wasn't afraid to tell her things, wasn't afraid to say what I was thinking, even if I didn't think she wanted to hear it. And she sure as hell wasn't afraid to say anything to me. It was like we knew that the other person was strong enough to take it.

But we're not anymore. Strong enough, I mean. Neither one of us are strong enough to take the truth from the other person. At least, I think that's what we're both thinking. I don't want my words to shove another needle into her arm. And she doesn't want to make it my fault. So we end up in this awkward dance, neither of knowing how to take the lead.

Ya know what's weird, though? Even though it's awkward, even though we're both trying to find our way and figure things out, neither one of us wants to give up. We want to make this work. Maybe, if I'm being really honest, and really girlie, I can admit that's the reason I'm here. Holding her hand, staring at the bare, linoleum floor, waiting for this shrink to show up. We've gotta get past this part, to start the healing, so we can get back to what we used to be.

"I can't talk to him right now, Elise. I'm in session. Tell him I will call him back," a man's voice pierces our silence again as a tall dude in jeans and an FSU sweatshirt kicks the door shut with his foot. Flipping his phone shut, he looks over at us and smiles brightly. I hate him already. Not fair, I know, but I hate him.

Not because of that fake-ass smile, or his stupid, college boy look. It's because he barely glances at me before he locks in on Tate with this overtly-caring gaze. What the hell is that about? I thought this guy was professional. Why the fuck is mauling my girl with his beady little eyes? What the fuck is goin' on here?

I know she can feel my body tense because Tatum releases my hand and twists her fingers together in her lap, her shoulders shifting in a sure sign that she's uncomfortable. "Um, Zack," she starts, her voice low, as though she's just been caught doing something wrong by her parents or something. Who the hell does this guy think he is? "This is my . . . um, Randy."

"Your Randy, huh?" Zack smiles and offers a hand to me. I shake it, because I'm a polite guy like that. Really, I just did it so I could squeeze his fingers a little and make him see that I'm not a guy to fuck around with. And that my girl isn't to be fucked with, either. "How do you feel about that, Randy?" he asks me.

God, I wanna punch his face. I've been through anger management, but I could give a fuck less about everything I learned there right about now. "How do I feel about what?" I ask, my jaw clenching hard as I meet his eye and watch him smile easily. He doesn't want me to think he's intimidated by me, but I know his type. Thinkin' they're better than everybody else because they got some fancy degree on their walls? Fuck that. He's pissin' himself on the inside.

Zack taps his pen against his lip and tilts his head, his eyes darting back and forth between Tatum and me. He's scared. I can practically smell it from here. "About Tatum referring to you as hers," he clarifies for me, his lips pursed as he scribbles something onto his legal pad. "Calling you 'her' Randy."

I can't help but roll my eyes. "She didn't mean it like that, jackass," I spit without thinking. I can feel Tatum stiffen beside me. She likes this guy. She told me that yesterday. He's better than her other therapists. Makes her feel comfortable. Doesn't talk down to her. Makes her feel smart. Is that why I hate him so much? Probably.

Taking a deep breath, Zack shifts in his seat and crosses his ankle over his knee. "I'm sensing some hostility from you, Randy," he says. He's one of those guys. The ones who say my name in every sentence, as though it's somehow going to calm me down. Like my name is some magic word. The only magic I find in my own name is hearing it from Lilian Garcia when she announces me before a match, and from Tatum. This punk has no power over me.

"Probably," I nod easily, stretching an arm over the back of Tatum's folding chair. She tucks a leg under her body and clears her throat. I know I'm making her uncomfortable, but I don't care. She wanted me here. I didn't ask for this. I'm not really in the mood to play nice.

But this pencil-necked punk is determined not to show any fear. Fucker. He just writes something else and then meets my eye. "Tatum tells me that you've undergone some counseling of your own," he states and I nod. No use in denying it, I guess. If nothing else, I can let him know that I've seen his tricks and I'm not impressed. "Was it voluntary?"

I shake my head and run my thumb over Tatum's shoulder. She shivers beneath my touch and I can't help the smirk that travels across my lips. I don't fuckin' care who's in the room. Knowing that I still have that effect on her? That's money right there, kids. "My employer ordered it," I answer easily.

"So is it safe to say that you have an aversion to therapists in general?" Zack asks, looking up from his note pad again. "Or is it just me that you have a problem with?"

I can't stop the chuckle from escaping my throat. Maybe he's not stupid. Just annoying. "I got nothin' against shrinks in general," I inform him.

"Randy," Tatum whispers at my side. She knows me. This woman knows me better than anybody. She knows that I stay cool, even moreso when I'm about to kick someone's ass. She knows that I will gladly bust him up if he doesn't watch himself. She knows and she doesn't like it. Times like this, I have to remind myself that this isn't just about me. It's about her. About making sure that she gets what she needs out of this whole crazy circus.

I'll be damned if I'm going to apologize, though. Fuck him. I won't pretend to like someone that I don't. Not even for Tatum. "Look, I don't even know why I'm here, alright?" I fire off, though I'm not sure who I'm talking to.

Not that it matters because Dr. Zack's eyes are now trained heavily on Tatum. I turn my head and she's staring at her fingers, her face sad and withdrawn. The peaceful girl that I had dinner with last night is no longer here with us. She's a shell of who she had been. Stupid fuckin' shrink.

"Tatum," he says, his voice soft, drawing her eyes from her lap to his face. "Why did you want to have Randy here with you today?"

For the first time, I see the Tatum I fell in love with. I've known that she was in there for a long time, but this is the first moment that I've recognized the Tatum from years back. There's a fire in her eyes, a spark that I didn't even realize I missed. It's been fading for so long that it nearly knocks me off the chair to see the sparkle again. Distracts me enough that I don't have time to prepare myself for her next statement.

But she relaxes her pose and answers Zack with unflinching honesty. "I'm sick of this," she confesses.

"Sick of what, Tatum?" Zack asks before I can. Have I mentioned that I hate him, because I do. I hate him. When she doesn't answer him, he leans forward in his seat. "Sick of the relationship?" It is taking everything in my body not to punch him. Would kicking him in the balls be out of the question?

Tatum runs a hand through her disheveled hair and then shakes her head. "No!" she gasps, turning her eyes toward me. We don't actually hold each other's gaze before she turns back, though, sniffling just slightly. "Randy's the only guy I've ever really cared about," she speaks with authority, as though she's trying to let Zack know that he's not going to change her mind. That's my girl right there. "He's the only one I've ever really wanted to be with, like for the long haul."

She reaches over and rests her hand against my thigh, squeezing gently. It makes me want to giggle, if I was the kind of guy who giggled. Clearing my throat, I cover her hand with mine and turn toward her. "That's why I'm here," I tell her, my voice low. I don't give a fuck if Zack can hear me or not. This isn't about him. "That's why I came here, Tate," I go on when she raises her eyes to me. "To find you. To be with you."

I think Zack starts to say something, but Tatum's not listening anymore. She's staring into my eyes, her brown orbs warm and filled with a mixture of emotions I can't begin to untangle. "You said that before," she states, no whisper or sound of hesitance in her voice. Is it wrong that the confidence she's eminating is kind of turning me on right now? "And then you left me."

She's right. I did. And how do I apologize for that? Especially when I'm not sorry. Fuck. I so badly don't want to hurt her, but it's so fucking hard to explain why I did what I did back then. Not to anybody else - they all seem to understand. But how will she? What if she doesn't? What if shoves her over the edge? What if I say something I can't take back? "Tate," I start, rolling my shoulders uncomfortably.

"Randy," she starts, twisting her hand in mine until our palms touch and our fingers tangle together. Her body twists toward me, and the simple white tee shirt and sweat pants she's sporting might as well be an evening gown. I'm not sure I've ever even dreamed of a more beautiful creature. So small, so vulnerable, so breakable. "I have always loved the way you take care of me, shelter me. I love the way you make me feel safe," she smiles a crooked, half smile that nearly stops my heart. "But we're never gonna work if you're not honest with me."

She thinks she's strong enough to take it. She thinks that she can handle what I have to say, but I'm not sure that she can. I'm not sure that she wants to. I'm just not sure that what I'm feeling matters in this situation at all. I can push it aside. I've already poured all of my feelings out to Felicia. I've moved past them. No need to talk about them again. "Doesn't matter, baby," I assure her, pushing her hair behind her ear, if for no other reason than just to touch her face, to hold something more than just her hand.

Her hand retracts from mine so quickly, I barely notice it's gone. Her head whips away from my hand and her chocolate gaze grows wide. "Yes, it does," she insists. "It matters to me. Look, I wanna be with you, Randy. I wanna be with you so bad I can taste you in my mouth." I can't help smirking, but she doesn't roll her eyes, so I know she's not amused. "But I'm kinda in a weird place right now, and I can't do this if we keep carryin' around all this weirdness. We gotta get it out. We gotta figure it out and stop worrying about breaking each other."

Did I ever mention the fact that she seems to have the ability to read minds, as well. My little Tate is very intuitive. She knows what I'm doing. About as well as I know what she's doing. And she's ready to put an end to it. In a way, it makes me happy. I mean, she's asking me to go back to the guy I was when we first got together. And I guess she's telling me that she's willing to do that, too - to be the woman I used to know. But I'm not entirely convinced that she's as strong as she thinks she is. A month ago, she was ready to light up again. Now, she's suddenly ready to make the commitment to a change? Is that even possible?

"Tatum," Zack's voice interrupts and I feel my temperature rising again. Does he really have to be here for this? I've had enough people listenin' in on my personal thoughts for awhile. Maybe I could throw him out the window? It's on the first floor - other than a few glass splinters, he wouldn't get hurt too bad, would he? "Maybe this would be easier if you tell Randy what you've been holding back first."

Ya know what would make this easier? If it wasn't happening. That would make it easier.

I don't know what's worse - worrying about what Tatum's going to say to me, or the fear of how I'm going to react. If she starts pointing fingers and accusing me of something, I could blow up and I don't want to. Fuck, I don't wanna hurt her. You may find this hard to believe, but my temper's a little volatile from time to time. It kinda goes off like a bomb and leaves innocent people battered in the debris. Poetic, I know.

"Okay," Tatum takes a deep breath and sinks back in her chair again. "You left me," she states easily, her shoulders shrugging. "I know that you had good reasons, and I understand that. But you still left. I've watched you walk away from me twice, Randy. Give up on me. Decide that there was no hope for me, for us."

I can't hold my tongue. I know it's rude to interrupt, but I just don't care. "You think that was easy for me? That I wanted to walk away? That it made me happy?" Standing from my chair, I grab the sides of my head, hoping to clear the ridiculous notion of what she's just said. "Oh my god, Tatum, how could you possibly think that I wanted it that way?"

"Did you give me any reason not to?" she challenges, her eyebrow shooting up from her place, still firmly fixed to her seat. She folds her arms over her chest and I feel my pulse jump. It's a good, old fashioned Randy and Tate fight. God, I miss these. "Your note said you couldn't do this anymore, that I needed help. Outside the safe house, you said you couldn't stick around anymore."

She's twisting my words. That's not what I said. "I told you that I hoped you beat it. I told you that I hoped you got control of everything," I argue, but she just huffs. "Ya know, from the day I left you way back when, I was celibate. I didn't even date anybody. I couldn't. Because everybody reminded me of you. Everybody made me think of you, about how much I loved you and I missed you. I told you that," I point a finger without thinking. "I told you on the beach. Told you there hadn't been anybody else. And I told you that day how much I fucking loved you.

"You're the one who said you didn't love me. That you never loved me as much as that other shit you were doin'. You're the one who gave up. On me. On us. You just stopped doing anything at all. Just existed." God, she makes me so fucking angry. Who the hell does she think she is, pointing the finger at me? I'm the one who gave up? Me? What the hell is that? "All you wanted was another hit! I never wanted anything but you!"

She shoots out of her chair and takes a step closer, nearly brushing up against me. Her beautiful face is twisted in anger, deep red and I can almost see smoke pour out of her ears. "What about Candace, huh? What about that?" I recoil slightly - she's right, but I'll be damned if I'm going to tell her that. "What was that? Two hours after you left me? Three? Hell, Randy, you coulda brought her to Chicago with ya. I had a bed at the house you coulda fucked her in. Saved ya some time."

"You don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about," I spit angrily, taking another step forward. "The only reason I fucked Candace was because I couldn't fuckin' stop thinking about you! Cause even when I wanna walk away from you, I can't fucking leave!"

"You are so unbe-fuckin-lievable!" she shoots back and I catch a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. Don't know what it is. Don't care. "Why can't you just fucking admit that you were wrong about something for once? That you fucked somebody else while I was in a fucking hospital bed? I could have fucking died, Randy, and you were pounding a skanky bitch doggy-style!"

"Why the fuck would you have wanted me there? You're so angry that I walked away from you, but you want me there when you're in the hospital? What the fuck kinda logic is that?" God, nobody makes me as angry as this woman does when she talks herself around in circles.

The movement catches my eye again, but I don't see him. Only hear Zack's timid voice as he clears his throat. "I think it's time to take our seats and regroup," he starts.

Both Tatum and I turn our heads at the same time. "Shut up, Zack!" we warn in unison. It would be funny, if anything about this situation were funny.

"I was dying," she turns back to me, unshed tears rushing to her eyes. "I thought I was going to die," she repeats, her voice breaking. "The only person I wanted to see before I went," there's a sniffle and she takes three or four steps back. Her shoulders sag, and even though I was pissed as all hell one second ago, it evaporates. I can't be mad when she looks like she's about to hit the floor. With a hand firmly stuck in her hair and another on her waist, she stares at the floor. "I needed you and you weren't there."

Nothing else she could have possibly said would shoot through my heart like those words do. "Baby," I whisper, rushing toward her and wrapping my arms around her. I've fucked up. A lot. So has she. We both know it. We can't change it. But we can move forward from here. "I'm right here," I assure her as she buries her face in my chest. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry that I was with someone else when I should have been with you. But I'm right here now, and I'm not goin' anywhere, okay?" I think I feel her nod as my hands rest on her waist. With my face in her hair, I breathe deeply that fruity scent.

It sounds weird, but for the first time in years, I feel my heart settle. This is where I belong. This is the woman I belong with. No matter what's happened, or what we've done, we fit. And I meant what I told Tatum. I'm not going anywhere.


	14. Saving Tatum

**A/N: Just a head's up - there's only one chapter left of this story. Randy and Tatum's story is just about over. I have finished writing it, all that is left is to post it. And I'll tell ya this much: the ending made me cry. Me. And I never cry, especially over something I wrote. I'm so in love with this highly disfunctional couple, and I hope you are, too. Okay - no more babbling. Enjoy! **

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**The Rest Will Follow**

September 23, 2007  
_21 days sober  
19 days out of rehab_

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The best part about voluntarily entering a rehab program is that you can check yourself out at any moment. When Randy and I got back together, after that day in Zack's office, I decided to take Maria up on her offer to use her house for my recovery. It was hard to leave Oasis, like folding up a security blanket and stuffing it into the back of a drawer. But Randy made a convincing argument for what I think I already knew anyway. I didn't need that place. I have everything that I need to heal right here. Between his support and my own determination, I feel better than ever that I'm going to be okay. 

Though he's had to head back on the road, Vince has been pretty good about letting Randy take a relaxed schedule for the time being. He does his four days on and then he comes home to me for his three days off. Maria's been by a couple of times to pick up some things that she needs, but I'm pretty sure she's slowly moving into John's house in Tampa. Honestly, I think that's for the best. I need to know that I can do this on my own, without someone constantly holding my hand. The four days by myself each week is good for me. Bones are healing, and the cravings are growing less and less insistent. Even for pain medication. I'm doing so well.

Well, except for the fact that I can't sleep. At least, I can't sleep tonight. At all. Randy got home three hours ago, and it was all he could do to eat dinner before passing out on the couch. He woke up about twenty minutes ago, long enough to kiss me good night and drag his ass down the hall to the guest room. We can't really sleep in the Master bedroom because it's up the stairs and I'm still having some trouble with that, but the guest room is just as well.

It has it's own terrace, which is where I am now. Smoking a cigarette, good knee pulled up to my chest. Just watching. I can't help but feel guilty when I realize all of the chances I missed to do this while I was passed out from something or other. How many times did he do this for me? Put me to bed and then just watch? What was he thinking?

Did he think about how peaceful I looked, no worries or cares on my face? Did he marvel at the lack of creases in my forehead? The absence of bags under my eyes? Did he find his heart warming at a sub-concious smile that I wasn't aware was spreading across my lips? Did he wish I would open my eyes just so he could get one more glimpse at my intense gaze staring back at him?

Did he ever wait with baited breath for me to shift or turn, hoping that the thin sheets would slide a little further down my bare back? Did he ever look at the tattoos on my shoulder and lower back, holding himself in place so that he wouldn't disturb my sleep when all he really wanted to do was trace them with his fingers? Did he notice the way my arms wrapped protectively around the pillow? The way my skin stretched over muscle, taut and unflinching? Did he study my fingers, just splayed against the bedding? Thinking about how each digit felt against his skin, running through the short hairs at the back of his neck? Did his goosebumps surface when he thought about that particular touch?

It seems so crazy now. I know it's partially because of the drugs, but I really don't remember a time before I knew Randy. I don't remember who I was before. I do remember the day we met, but everything before that? It's a blur.

I remember Maria telling me that John had this friend that they wanted me to meet. She thought I would be good for him. Apparently, he was cocky and thought he was God's gift to women, but that they knew he was just waiting for the right woman to challenge him. Apparently, I can be very challenging. Maria and I had been friends for awhile, but since she started wrestling, I really didn't have a chance to see her that much. So I figured why not? I could meet a hot guy, shake things up for him, and spend some time with one of my best friends. Sounded like a win-win.

I can't even tell you how beautiful I thought he was that day. Just chillin' in the pool, arms spread out across the wall, sunlight sparkling off of the water around him. It danced about him, like stars dancing off of his chiseled chest. He had this dark hair, and these piercing blue eyes. A tan that varied somewhere between fun-in-the-sun and fake-and-bake, but it worked for him. I wasn't really into the Abercrombie frat boy, but he had this undeniable charm that I couldn't resist.

Randy was the kind of guy who never lacked for anything to say back in those days. Hell, he's still that kind of guy. I don't think I was like that before I met him. I don't remember ever being the kind of girl who would just throw herself in your face, begging for attention. Not when I was sober anyway.

But something happened that day. Roles reversed. I remember stepping onto the patio next to the pool, wearing a really basic bikini. The one that I had borrowed from Maria. The one that was supposed to knock Randy's socks off. But as far as I could tell, I was the one fidgeting around with a piece of a napkin that barely covered my ass, and he wasn't even wearing any freakin' socks.

But he was totally staring at me. Mouth hanging open, like I was the most beautiful, breath-taking thing he had ever seen. And I felt like I was about twenty feet tall. I felt like one of the beautiful girls that I used to admire in the fashion magazine that I worked for at the time. I felt like I assumed Maria must have felt every time we went out to dinner, or just to the mall. I felt like a supermodel. And it was empowering.

So I sauntered over to him, slipped into the pool and stared directly into those piercing eyes. And I couldn't help it. I smirked. Just as I had made fun of him for doing in every picture Maria had shown me of him to that point. My lip twitched up and I couldn't stop myself. Couldn't hold back. Next thing I know, my eyebrow is shooting up questioningly and my finger is running over his strong jawline. Who does that? The first time they meet someone? Who does that? I had never done that before. Guess what I said to him. Just guess what the first thing I said to Randy was.

"We could make beautiful fuckin' babies, man." What? Who the FUCK says that? Nobody, that's who. But I guess it worked, because he just slid over next to me in the pool, our thighs gliding against each other under the water, and introduced himself. Like we'd known each other forever.

We talked that night until John and Maria went to bed, and then we talked for a few hours more. Watched the sun come up from the back porch. Like we were meant to talk to each other. Meant to spend time together. Meant to be together.

Dropping my gaze from his still form long enough to light another cigarette, I try to remember as much of our relationship as I can. We've reminisced about the good times a lot over the last month or so, but there are a lot of things we still don't talk about. There are a lot of things that we just agree to keep quiet, that don't need to be dredged back up. Especially things about the end. About after I got really bad.

I pretend that I don't remember that much of it, but the truth is that I remember just enough to know that Randy made the right decision in walking away from me when he did. When I think about how it was, and what it became? Dammit if I don't long for a long, stiff drink. Not the way I used to, but just enough to dull the ache, the guilt of knowing how badly I disrespected him.

I remember when I first moved into the house, Randy couldn't get home to me fast enough. I would be waiting for him in a tank top, bikini bottoms, and my glasses. He always loved my glasses. I always waited out by the pool on the days that he was coming home, pretending to read a book while I listened for the sound of his engine coming up the driveway. I would race through the house and be waiting for him at the door, a drink for each of us in my hands. I would nearly knock him over when I flung myself at him, wrapped my arms around him and usually spilled both drinks down his back.

He would kiss me like he hadn't seen me in a year, just enough to make my toes curl in anticipation, and then he would lead me to the living room, where I had a joint ready, inviting him to settle into the relaxation of our private life. The life that John and Maria weren't a part of. That his company wasn't a part of. That his fans didn't know about. The one where we were the only ones that mattered.

I remember the first time Maria told Randy that she thought I had a problem. I wasn't there, of course. That's not the kind of thing you say about a junkie in front of them. But Randy told me about it, and then he laughed it off. He said he told her that he hadn't really noticed. Because there was nothing for him to notice. I drank in front of him, but never to the point of being hammered. And I smoked joints with him, but I saved the hard stuff for when he was away. I loved Randy, and I loved that he loved me. I wasn't about to do anything around him that would drive him away. I wasn't stupid. There were times when the buzz didn't quite wear off before he showed up, but I had a way of dragging him up the stairs and making him think that he was the one who caused that dazed and glazed look in my eyes.

I guess it became undeniable after awhile, though. I stopped taking care of his house. Stopped doing laundry and dishes. The house smelled awful, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I knew he wanted me to, but at some point, I just didn't care. I would shrug him off. Empty liquor bottles on the sink and the tables. Some shattered against the walls or the floors. Alcohol and drug paraphanalia all over the house - at a certain point, I didn't even try to hide it. To be honest, at a certain point, I didn't notice it anymore. Not even when the glass dug into my feet as I walked through it, or a pipe broke when I fell onto it.

That job I loved so much, as a designer at the magazine, slipped through my fingers when I stopped showing up, but Randy never gave up hope that we could make it through the darkness together. He never stopped covering for me, cleaning up after me, taking care of me. Even as I wandered the halls of our home, bombed out of my mind, laughing at people who weren't there, or fighting with them. As I slowly lost my mind, the more I broke his heart, the more dedicated he became to making sure I made it through another day.

When he was out of work because of his shoulder injury? A good girlfriend would have pampered him and catered to him. A good girlfriend would have done everything she could to make sure that he was comfortable, had everything he needed to heal up from his injury. But a high-ass girlfriend offered him some painkillers. I don't know where I got them. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't take them. And I didn't feel guilty about the fact that he spent more time worrying about me than I ever would have thought to spend on him.

Didn't feel guilty about it then. Feel plenty guilty about it now, though. If I could go back, if I could fix it, I would do it in a heartbeat. I don't know that I would have stopped using - all of my counselors have always told me that it's pointless to play 'coulda, shoulda' mind games with myself. I was already on my way to becoming a user by the time I met Randy. It wasn't nearly as bad as it became, but it was there.

But I could have fixed it. I could have kicked him out before I dragged him down. I could have kicked him out before I became dependent on him. Before I wasted so much of his time. The most fucked up thing about it, though, is that he would assure me that it wouldn't have mattered if I did say something about it now. He would have stuck around anyway. He would tell me that he was too convinced back then that he could save me. He would tell me that I could have told him to go to hell, and he would have stood his ground.

He's always telling me stuff like that. He's like a superhero. My superhero. My knight-in-shining-armor. My savior. He is the man every woman dreams of having at her side. Especially if she has something impossible to overcome in her life. He is perfection.

Which is why it's going to suck so hard when I ask him to leave tomorrow. I know, I'm crazy, but Randy can't be here. There's no doubt in my mind that I love him. There's no doubt in my mind that he loves me. But there are only two times now that I seriously crave the high.

One is when the guilt sets in. Granted, that's not Randy's fault. Not at all. He's forgiven me for everything. But until I can forgive myself completely for the hell I put him through, I'm not sure I can stay clean. And it's impossible to forgive myself when he's constantly here, always reminding me of what we were, of why we're not anymore.

The other time that I crave a high is when I know he's going to be leaving. I've been able to convince myself that it's only four days up until now. But every time he leaves, I sit on the couch with the phone in my hand, fighting the urge to call Dex. I think about it more when he's not around. I pretend that I don't. I act like I'm fine. When he's here, I am. But every time he comes home, I find myself slightly more dependent on him.

I made a decision on that rainy day before my accident. I want to live my life clean, dependent on nothing. I can't trade my substance addiction for a Randy addiction. I just can't. If he wants to save me, he'll understand that.


	15. Whenever One Door Closes, Another Opens

**A/N: So this is it, y'all. The end of Randy and Tatum's story. Sort of. I purposely left it open to a possible sequel somewhere down the line. But the way my shoddy inspiration runs right now, I'm not makin' promises as to when I'm going to get around to writing one. Right now, my muses are all about Cena - after watching two hours worth of '5 Questions with the Champ' I've developed a much more light-hearted story, one that should be a much-needed angst-break after this tearfest. That being said, I hope you all enjoy the conclusion of **

**The Rest Will Follow**

May 31, 2008

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So y'all know what went down. You know Tatum kicked me out. Said she needed to know for herself that she could do it on her own, that she couldn't need me anymore. Said that if we were meant to be, it had to be because we wanted to be together. Not because she couldn't live without me. Didn't seem to matter if I needed her or not. Didn't seem to matter what I wanted at all. She had her mind made up. 

Kinda like I did when I walked away from her two years ago. I get it. I do. I understand what she's saying, but it doesn't make the truth hurt any less, ya know? Doesn't make this fuckin' hole in my chest stop throbbing. Doesn't make my arms stop aching to hold her. Doesn't make my head stop spinning at the thought of what could have been.

I was all packed and ready to head back out on the road for a few days. All ready to come back to her when I was done with work for the week. And then she told me that I had to go, that I couldn't come back. Tears flowed down her beautiful face and I knew it wasn't what she wanted. I tried to tell her that, and she didn't argue. She didn't even tell me that I was fuckin' wrong. Just said that it didn't matter what she wanted, she needed to be by herself. Said she needed to know that she could be without falling apart.

What am I supposed to do? Throw a fit? Kick and scream? Would it help? We all know that it wouldn't. Ain't nothin' you can do when someone don't wanna be with you anymore, I guess. Gotta let 'em go. Move on. Figure out who you are without 'em. Try to see where the road leads from here. Where you're goin'. How you finish the puzzle without the most important piece.

Or you do what I did. Work for four days, head home, and get higher than a fuckin' kite. Ironic, I know. I've failed drug tests in the past. I've been on the bubble at work for awhile now. Everybody knows it. But even Vince could tell how fucked up I was that weekend. Even if I had been on the list for a random testing after that, I think I would have gotten out of it. I think people have this idea that I'm some golden child, that they're just holdin' on to me because I'm a draw on the card. You don't know how they watch out for me like family. How they actually give a damn when I'm havin' a hard time.

Got all bombed out of my mind that weekend, honestly believing that it would help. Maybe not long-term. I'm not a complete moron. But I was hoping it would do something for a minute. The ache was just so fuckin' strong. It was like I just wanted to feel something other than pain. And if I couldn't do that, I wanted to be numb. To everything.

Course, y'all know it didn't work, right? Didn't matter what I smoked or snorted, it didn't make it go away. Nothing made it go away. I cried. Like a little bitch, I cried for three days straight. Couldn't stop, no matter how many times I told myself that guys don't do this shit. No matter how many times I went over what she had told me, tried to convince myself that she was right, I couldn't. She wasn't.

I'm still not sure she was. Still not sure we shouldn't be together. Still not sure that I'm better off without her. Not convinced she's doin' okay without me, either. Of course, I have no way of knowing that because John and Maria have finally decided to keep their mouths shut. After two years, it took her walking out on me to shut them the fuck up. I guess there are silver linings after all.

But tomorrow, it'll all be over. All of the wondering and the nerves and the speculation will be laid to rest. I'll see Tatum in the flesh for the first time in six months. She's the Maid of Maria's Honor. I'm John's Best Man. So we're not only gonna see each other for the first time, but it's going to be at a wedding. Surrounded by alcohol and love. Good times should be had by all. And by all, I mean everyone but Tatum and me. Or, at least, me. She might be fine. I don't know.

I thought that I would know what to say by now. I thought that I would have the words, that I would be able to muster some sort of smile, some happy thoughts to get me through. Instead, I'm freezin' my ass off, smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Lake Michigan ripple in the wind. God, I wish I knew how to do this, but I don't. I just don't.

I know it's easy to think that I might be able to fake it. I mean, I'm a performer, right? That's what I get paid for - pretending. But let's be honest, okay? I don't exactly play the most happy, cuddly character on television. Also, this ain't TV, kids. This is real-life, and it's fuckin' messy. I can't plaster a smile on my face to get through this day any more than you could. I can't fake this.

This may come as a shock to you, but I know that tomorrow's not about me. I know that I should just be happy for my best friend. He's found the girl of his dreams. They're perfect for each other. Their road has been easy and it's led them to an eternal kinda happiness. That's awesome for John, and I am happy for him, believe it or not. As irritated as I can get with him, with both of them at times, they deserve the joy that they bring each other. When I give my toast tomorrow night, I'm going to mean every damn well-wish that I offer them.

My concern isn't that I'll appear facetious. The people who will be there, the people who will hear my toast, know me. John's dad and his brothers. My co-workers. People who will not doubt my sentiments. And the exact group of men that I do not want to see me break down and sob like a little girl with a skinned knee. But I know that's what I'm going to do. There hasn't been a single time since I wrote the damn speech that I've been able to read through it without my voice cracking, my lip quivering, and my eyes leaking like a holey hose.

Not mention the fact that Tatum will be right there - sitting right there at my side. She's going to hear every word that I say. She's going to say words of her own. We're going to talk about the virtues of love, about how wonderful it is that these two people have found each other. Is it wrong that I want her to have as hard a time with it as I do?

One of the things that I love the most about the beach is the silence. When you're in a zone, inside your own head, you can't hear footsteps. You can't really hear other people's conversations. Especially at eleven o'clock at night. You can't hear traffic over the lapping waves. You get to be alone with your thoughts and I love that.

Until the sweet smell of menthol smoke invades my nostrils. It's the only tip off that I am no longer alone. And my heart sinks like a rock. I've smelled that a thousand times. It wouldn't matter if I was in a crowded, smoke-filled bar and I would know if someone wearing vanilla body lotion lit up a Marlboro Menthol Light. And I would turn my head, fully expecting to see that shaggy, dark hair and those sultry, soulful brown eyes. I would be holding my breath, hoping like hell to see those full lips wrapped around that white filter. I would know Tatum's brand anywhere.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" her voice sounds behind me and I can't bring myself to turn. I know what I'll see and I know that I'm not ready. Of all of the people that I don't want to see me crying, she is at the top of the list. To be strong for her feels like the only thing I've ever really been living for.

I don't trust my voice, so I settle for a shoulder shrug. I can hear her sigh, a heavy, disheartened sound, and I can't muster an ounce of sympathy for her. I love this woman, more than my own fucking life still, but I'm not going to make this reunion easy for her. I can't. Because it sure as hell isn't easy for me.

Especially when I look up. Fuck me, she's as beautiful as she was the last time. Her hair is growing out. She's wearing make up. My Tatum never wore make up. Her clothing is fitted, hugging her every curve instead of hanging off of her bones. She's limping just a little bit, but walking so much better than the last time I saw her. My God, she's a vision. "Wow," I whisper without thinking.

She barely smiles. Her eyes roll, her lip twitches, and her shoulders slightly rise and fall. Holding her cigarette between her full lips, she rakes her fingers through her chin-length locks as she lowers herself to my side. What do I say to her? What's she going to say to me? Is it wrong that I automatically think that it's fate we're here in the same place at the same time? Even though we spent countless hours here during the course of our relationship.

There is a strange silence that settles between us. Watching the waves. Pretending we are alone. Trying to figure out who says what, and when. It's not like we've never dealt with awkward in the course of our fucked up, anything-but-traditional relationship. But I'm not sure this is awkward. It's just . . . it's weird, man.

My head is full of things I want to say, things I think she should know. But where am I supposed to start? How am I supposed to blurt out the mix of emotions that I've been living with? I'm not even sure I understand all of them. How do I make her understand them?

"I miss you," she says. Without warning. Without explanation. Just a soft, sweet whisper in the wind.

Fuck. I always do this around her. Never know what to say, always manage to open my mouth anyway. "Miss you, too" I respond. I do miss her. Every second of every fucking day, I miss her. We spent a year and a half apart and it didn't hurt like this. I thought about her, wished that she would be okay, wondered how she was doing. But I didn't miss her like I do now. I didn't hug my pillow in my sleep. I didn't wake up with tear stains on my face back then.

"Ya know what I keep thinkin'?" Tatum asks when it becomes obvious I'm not gonna say anything. I just shrug. "I thought it would be us. I really thought we would take the walk before John and Maria did."

She could have just turned and punched a hole in my gut. Could have thrown some of this sand in my eyes or kicked me into that freezing water. Maybe she could have brought a knife and just stabbed me in the heart. "Coulda been," I tell her, and I know I sound bitter. Because I am.

I had it all planned. Her birthday in July. Been workin' on it since September. Since she got out of the hospital. Since before I went to see her at Oasis. The ring's still in my desk drawer at home. We were gonna get her back on her feet after the accident, and then I was going to wisk her away to the one city she'd always said she wanted to see. Plane tickets are in the desk with the ring. Our hotel reservations still stand in Milan. Can't bring myself to cancel everything, to believe that it won't work out in the end. Can't make the calls I would have to make. Can't bring myself to admit that it's really not going to hapepn.

"The fucked up thing is that I can't help hoping that it still will be," she says softly, her fingers fumbling for another cigarette.

Her nose is red, her lips tinging a slight shade of blue. It's cold as hell out here. Guess I would notice if it hadn't felt like ice running through my chest for the last several months. "Don't," I tell her, turning my face. It's hard to tell her 'no' - always has been - but I can't take this. I can't listen to her muse about what could be in the future. I have a hard enough time letting go. I don't want her to play with me, to give me a hope that's never going to come through. I can't do this anymore. "Unless you really mean that, Tatum, don't fuckin' play with me like that."

She stares at the sand on the beach between her upturned knees. "I'm not playin' with you." I know her well enough to know that she's not. She means it. But it doesn't fuckin' change anything. Unless she says 'I made a mistake and I need you, Randy,' it's not gonna change a motherfuckin' thing. "I will never stop loving you, Candy Cane."

Fuck me. I haven't heard that nickname in years. She hasn't used it in forever. Jesus. I'll never forget, until the day that I die, the way she rested on her elbows between my thighs. Staring at me with heavily-lidded eyes, grinning like a kid in with a lollipop as she cupped my length gently between her hands. There was a mumbling, slightly incoherent speech about my name rhyming with 'candy,' which somehow evolved into licking me like a candy cane. I don't know - I guess it's not that cute anymore, but it still zaps my heart to hear her say it.

How can she sit there, pull out the nickname, bring in the big guns? How can she do this to me? Does she not understand how badly she broke my fuckin' heart? Ya know what sucks the most about this fuckin' situation? I wanna stand up and yell at her. I wanna tell her how she's ruined my life. I want her to feel what she's made me feel. God, I so badly wanna rip her a new hole. And I can't fuckin' do it.

I see her sitting there, looking like this is just as hard for her as it is for me, and I can't yell. I can't throw a fit. I can't hurt her. It's not in me. I've been angry from time to time, but never thought about taking it out on her. I've never thought about calling her names or hurting her in any way. I can't even fantasize about breaking her heart the way she's broken mine. I can't. Not with Tatum. Not with the woman I still love. "What happened to us, Tate? I thought we were perfect for each other," is all I can manage to say.

She sniffles against the cold and wraps her arms around her legs, turning her face and resting her cheek against her knees. "We were," she nods. "I wanted someone to save me. You wanted to save someone. We fit like a glove," she smiles slightly, but it never really meets her eyes.

Everybody fuckin' says that. Felicia, John, Maria. They all tell me that I have a super hero complex. That I feel like I have to save the people I love. Who doesn't feel that way? Come on. What's wrong with wanting to protect the person that you want to spend your life with? What's wrong with wanting her to be okay? To provide a security that she can't always provide for herself? What about all that 'everybody needs somebody sometimes' bull shit that Felicia tried to teach me? That it was okay to ask for help? Was that all bull shit? Or is it just okay for me to ask for help, but not for me to give it?

"Randy," she speaks again. God, I wish she would just stop. I wish that she would just go away. Even though I don't mean it, I wish that she had never walked into my life. Ya know that bull shit about 'it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'? Are you kidding me? "I'm not the fragile damsel in distress that I was," she continues, her hand finding mine and pulling it against her chest. "I'm not breakable anymore. I don't need kid gloves."

She could just leave my hand there, breathing on it, for the rest of the night and that would be okay. She doesn't even have to speak. Just the feeling of her lips brushing against my hand. God, I miss her. Even when she's sitting right here. "Tater Tot," I whisper, my voice cracking as the waves break against the shore.

"I love you, Randy," she kisses my hand again. "I love you more than you can possibly know. I really wanted to see you this weekend, to believe that it would be like some magical movie moment. Like everything had changed and we would fall into each other's arms. But Jesus, man," she chuckles and shakes her head. "You and me? We're like the two most co-dependent people on the planet, ya know? Just . . . we gotta _want _to be together. It doesn't work if we _need _it for survival."

Suddenly, I can't take her touching me anymore. Not when she's going to tell me that nothing has changed, that we're not going to be together. I can't have her touching me when she breaks up with me again. And we're not even together this time. I can't keep doing this. "Why not? Isn't that what relationships are? Isn't that what we always said, Tatum? That we were desparately in love? That we couldn't live without each other? That's what made us great, right?" She doesn't need me, and that's great for her. Where does it leave me? Where does that leave everything we built our relationship on?

She exhales a thick plume of white smoke and shakes her head. "It's what kept us together, yeah. But think about it, Randy. We were never happy. Not really."

Never happy? What the hell? How . . . I have never been so fucking confused in my whole fucking life. "Sorry I made you so fuckin' miserable," I roll my eyes and turn to look at the water. Am I acting like a dick? Maybe. I don't know how to do this graciously. And I don't care if I figure it out. I really don't fuckin' care.

Tatum is quiet as she lights yet another cigarette. This is hard for her. She's chain smoking at an alarming rate, even for her. She doesn't know what to do with herself. I don't know what to do with her, either. A part of me wants to wrap my arms around her and make sure that she knows I can take this. I can take the pain of it all on my shoulders. I can do it so that she doesn't have to.

Fuck me. They're right. She's right. Doesn't mean that I think I'm wrong. But I see it. For the first time, I get it. I just wanna save her from everything that's hard. Even if that thing is breaking my heart. Some girls might think that a guy who would sacrifice his own comfort for his girl's is perfect. Apparently, Tatum's not one of those girls.

I don't know what to say to her. I don't know what I'm thinking. I don't know what to do with what I know now. I just . . . I don't know. Standing, I wipe my hands on my jeans and gaze down on the woman who may, or may not, be the most perfectly flawed person I've ever met. "I gotta go over my speech again," I manage to say. She nods, pushing her long bangs from her face as she gazes up at me. She knows me. Dammit, this woman knows me so well. She knows this hard and she understands it enough to nod, to let me go with dignity. "I'll see ya tomorrow."

With my hands in my pockets, I turn my back and start toward my car. Where do I go from here? How to I correct something that everyone tells me is a negative character trait? Especially when I'm not sure that it is? This is who I am, ya know?

I'm overprotective of the woman that I love. I still live by the 'what you see is what you get' mentality. I still say what I think. I still punch things when I get angry and I still laugh when I think something is funny. I still let my action speak for me. That's who I am.

Maybe I need to find a balance between the two. Maybe I need to work on some things. I don't know. I'm not gonna figure it all out tonight. Tomorrow's a big day for my friend, so I'm gonna go back to the hotel, and I'm gonna figure out how to make sure I get through it.

After that, who knows?


End file.
